Detecting method, transmitting method and apparatus for common control channel

ABSTRACT

Embodiments of the present invention provide a detecting method, a transmitting method and an apparatus for a common control channel. The detecting method includes: determining a candidate resource set within virtual downlink resources of a current cell. The candidate resource set can include at least one candidate resource carrying a common control channel of the current cell. A detection is performed on at least one candidate resource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell. In the embodiments of the present invention, a selection range of resources for transmitting a common control channel is extended, so that inter-cell interference of the common control channel can be coordinated, and a detection performance of the common control channel can be improved.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application is a continuation of International Application No.PCT/CN2013/070726, filed on Jan. 18, 2013, which is hereby incorporatedby reference in its entirety.

TECHNICAL FIELD

The present invention relates to the communication field, and moreparticularly to a detecting method, a transmitting method and anapparatus for a common control channel.

BACKGROUND

A primary synchronization signal (PSS) and a secondary synchronizationsignal (SSS) are transmitted at a period of 5 subframes, the frequencydomain is located within a frequency domain width of 6 resource blocksin the center of a carrier, and the time domain occupies two symbols. Atime domain of a physical broadcast channel (PBCH) occupies the firstfour symbols of the second time slots in subframe 0, and the frequencydomain thereof is also located within a frequency domain width of 6resource blocks in the center of a carrier. The PBCH carries downlinkcarrier bandwidths, therefore, before the PBCH is detected, a userequipment (UE) only can identify a downlink carrier bandwidth within afrequency domain width of 6 resource blocks in the center of acurrently-detected carrier, that is, both the synchronization signalsand the PBCH must be placed in the downlink resource bandwidth within afrequency domain width of 6 resource blocks in the center of carrier. Asystem information block (SIB) can be divided into SIB1 through SIB13,the SIB1 is transmitted at a period of 20 ms, and is located on asubframe 5 of an even radio frame in time, the frequency domainresources are scheduled based on a physical downlink control channel(PDCCH), and the PDCCH is located in a common search space, i.e., thesearch space that all the UEs should detect; a time window fortransmitting other SIB is allocated via the SIB1, but specific time andfrequency domain resources are also scheduled based on the PDCCH. ThePDCCH is located within a control area, which is at the first n symbolsof one subframe, n is one of natural numbers from 1 to 4, the frequencydomain thereof occupies the whole bandwidth of the carrier, and thetransmitted PDCCH is broke up into the whole bandwidth throughinterleaving to obtain frequency diversity gain.

The UE is accessed to a base station in a process as follows: the PSS isfirstly detected, and then the SSS is detected through the time domainpositional relationship of the PSS and the SSS, to make initialsynchronization of the time domain, including synchronization of symbol,subframe and frame; a physical cell identifier (PCI) also can beacquired through the sequence combination of detected PSS and SSS, acyclic prefix length is determined through an time interval between PSSand SSS, and etc.; then the system information is read, PBCH is firstlyread to acquire a bandwidth of a downlink system, an antenna port for acell-specific reference signal (CRS), a system frame number, a physicalhybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (PHICH) configurationinformation and etc.; then SIB1 is read, and other SIBs are readaccording to configuration of the SIB1; and a random access signal isfinally transmitted to establish radio resource control connection withthe base station, and afterwards, normal data transmission can beperformed.

In one deployment scenario, massive base stations, especially micro basestations, are deployed in a dense manner. In this scenario, interferencebetween cells administrated by each mirco base station is rather severe,especially as for synchronization information, so that it is even moredifficult for the UE to read the common control channel or evenimpossible to acquire, including PBCH and a control channel forscheduling the SIB.

In order to solve the problem of detecting the common control channel inan interference restricted scenario, one direct solution is to performinter-cell interference coordination, that is, neighboring cellsrespectively transmit the common control channels of their respectivecells with orthogonal resources, such as PBCH, SIB and so on, and theorthogonal resources mentioned above can be at least one of time domain,frequency domain, codeword domain and spatial domain. However, the PBCHcarries the downlink carrier bandwidth based on the current design ofthe system, that is, before the PBCH is detected, the UE has no ideaabout the downlink carrier bandwidth of the current carrier, andtherefore, the interference coordination only can be performed within apredefined bandwidth, for example, the predefined bandwidth in thecurrent long term evolution (LTE) system is the frequency domain widthof six resource blocks in the carrier center. It can be seen that suchinterference coordination has a rather low degree of freedom, and theabove problems of detecting the common control channel cannot becompletely solved, especially in a scenario where the cells are deployedin a dense manner.

SUMMARY

Embodiments of the present invention provide a detecting method, atransmitting method and an apparatus for a common control channel, whichcan coordinate inter-cell interference of the common control channel,and improve a detection performance of the common control channel.

A first aspect provides a method for detecting a common control channel,including: determining a candidate resource set within virtual downlinkresources of a current cell, where the candidate resource set includesat least one candidate resource carrying a common control channel of thecurrent cell; and performing a detection on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire the commoncontrol channel of the current cell.

In a first possible implementation by combining the first aspect, beforethe determining the candidate resource set within the virtual downlinkresources of the current cell, the method further includes: acquiringfrequency domain position information of the current cell, where thefrequency domain position information includes a central frequency pointposition of the current cell and/or a frequency domain central resourceposition of the current cell; and determining the virtual downlinkresources according to the frequency domain position information.

In a second possible implementation by combining the first aspect or thefirst possible implementation of the first aspect, and morespecifically, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to one kind of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell.

In a third possible implementation by combining the second possibleimplementation of the first aspect, and more specifically, a resourceunit of the candidate resource in the candidate resource subset has amaximum frequency domain width less than or equal to half of the actualdownlink resource bandwidth corresponding to the candidate resourcesubset, and the resource unit is a physical block PRB, a PRB pair, acontrol channel element or a resource element group, which consist ofthe candidate resource in the candidate resource subset.

In a fourth possible implementation by combining the third possibleimplementation of the first aspect, one of the candidate resources inthe candidate resource subset is a frequency domain shift copy of theother candidate resource in the candidate resource subset.

In a fifth possible implementation by combining any one possibleimplementation of the second possible implementation of the first aspectto the fourth possible implementation of the first aspect, before theperforming the detection on at least one candidate resource in thecandidate resource set, so as to acquire the common control channel ofthe current cell, the method further includes: acquiring a physical cellidentifier (PCI) of the current cell; determining at least one firstcandidate resource respectively in each candidate resource subset in thecandidate resource set according to the PCI. The performing thedetection on at least one candidate resource in the candidate resourceset, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell,and more specifically, performing the detection on at least one firstcandidate resource, so as to acquire the common control channel of thecurrent cell.

In a sixth possible implementation by combining the first aspect or thefirst possible implementation of the first aspect, the method furtherincludes: acquiring a PCI of the current cell. The performing thedetection on at least one candidate resource in the candidate resourceset, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell,and more specifically, performing the detection on at least onecandidate resource in the candidate resource set according to the PCI,so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell.

In a seventh possible implementation by combining the first aspect orthe first possible implementation of the first aspect, before theperforming the detection on at least one candidate resource in thecandidate resource set, so as to acquire the common control channel ofthe current cell, the method further includes: acquiring a PCI of thecurrent cell; determining at least one first candidate resource from thecandidate resource set according to the PCI, where a number of the atleast one first candidate resources is less than or equal to a number ofcandidate resources in the candidate resource set; performing thedetection on at least one candidate resource in the candidate resourceset, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell,and more specifically, performing the detection on the at least onefirst candidate resource, so as to acquire the common control channel ofthe current cell.

In an eighth possible implementation by combining the first aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe first aspect to the seventh possible implementation of the firstaspect, the method further includes: determining, according to positioninformation of a common control channel detected resource, an actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, wherein the commoncontrol channel detected resource is a candidate resource detecting thecommon control channel of the current cell; or determining, according todownlink resource bandwidth indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell.

In a ninth possible implementation by combining the eighth possibleimplementation of the first aspect, the determining, according toposition information of a common control channel detected resource, theactual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, and morespecifically, determining, according to a common control channeldetected resource of a cell to be determined, a first downlink resourcebandwidth; and if a positional relationship between the common controlchannel detected resource of the cell to be determined and the currentcell conforms to a positional relationship indicated by resourceposition indication information carried by a common control channel ofthe cell to be determined, determining that the first downlink resourcebandwidth is the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell,wherein the resource position indication information carried by thecommon control channel of the cell to be determined indicates apositional relationship between the common control channel detectedresource of the cell to be determined and the cell to be determined.

In a tenth possible implementation by combining the eighth possibleimplementation of the first aspect, the determining, according todownlink resource bandwidth indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell, and more specifically, determining,according to downlink resource bandwidth indication information carriedby a common control channel of the cell to be determined, a seconddownlink resource bandwidth; if a common control channel detectedresource of the cell to be determined is within a frequency resourcerange of an undetermined downlink resource of the current cell,determining that the second downlink resource bandwidth is the actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, wherein theundetermined downlink resource of the current cell is a cell downlinkresource when the second downlink resource bandwidth is a bandwidth ofthe current cell.

In an eleventh possible implementation by combining the first aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe first aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the firstaspect, the method further includes: determining, according to positioninformation of a common control channel detected resource, an actualresource of a common search space of the current cell, wherein thecommon control channel detected resource is a candidate resourcedetecting the common control channel of the current cell, and the actualresource is a resource actually used by the common search space of thecurrent cell.

In a twelfth possible implementation by combining the eleventh possibleimplementation of the first aspect, the determining, according to theposition information of the common control channel detected resource,the actual resource of the common search space of the current cell, andmore specifically, acquiring, according to the position information ofthe common control channel detected resource, a candidate resource wherethe common control channel detected resource is located; determining,according to corresponding relationship between candidate resources ofthe common search space and candidate resources of the common controlchannel, that a candidate resource of the common search spacecorresponding to the candidate resource where the common control channeldetected resource is located is the actual resource of the common searchspace, wherein the candidate resources of the common search space arecandidate resources in the candidate resource set or candidate resourcesin a first common search space candidate resource set corresponding tothe candidate resource set.

In a thirteenth possible implementation by combining the first aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe first aspect to the twelfth possible implementation of the firstaspect, the method further includes: determining, according to commonsearch space indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, an actual resource of a common search spaceof the current cell, wherein the actual resource is a resource actuallyused by the common search space of the current cell.

In a fourteenth possible implementation by combining the thirteenthpossible implementation of the first aspect, the determining, accordingto the common search space indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the actual resource of the commonsearch space of the current cell, and more specifically, determiningthat all or a part of candidate resource in the candidate resourcesindicated by the common search space indication information is theactual resource of the common search space of the current cell, whereinthe candidate resources indicated by the common search space indicationinformation are candidate resources in the candidate resource set orcandidate resources in a first common search space candidate resourceset corresponding to the candidate resource set.

In a fifteenth possible implementation by combining the thirteenthpossible implementation of the first aspect or the fourteenth possibleimplementation of the first aspect, the determining, according to thecommon search space indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, the actual resource of the common searchspace of the current cell, and more specifically, determining, accordingto the position information of the common control channel detectedresource and the common search space indication information carried bythe common control channel of the current cell, the actual resource ofthe common search space of the current cell, wherein the common controlchannel detected resource is a candidate resource detecting the commoncontrol channel of the current cell.

In a sixteenth possible implementation by combining the fifteenthpossible implementation of the first aspect, the determining, accordingto the position information of the common control channel detectedresource and the common search space indication information carried bythe common control channel of the current cell, the actual resource ofthe common search space of the current cell, and more specifically,determining, according to the position information of the common controlchannel detected resource, a second common search space candidateresource set of the current cell, wherein the second common search spacecandidate resource set is a subset of the candidate resource set or asubset of the first common search space candidate resource setcorresponding to the candidate resource set; and determining, accordingto the common search space indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell and the second common search spacecandidate resource set, the actual resource of the common search spaceof the current cell.

In a seventeenth possible implementation by combining the first aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the first aspect to the fourth possible implementation of the firstaspect, before the performing the detection on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the method further includes:acquiring a PCI of the current cell. The method further includes:determining, according to the PCI, all or a part of a candidate resourcein the candidate resource set is a candidate resource of a common searchspace of the current cell.

In an eighteenth possible implementation by combining the seventeenthpossible implementation of the first aspect, the performing thedetection on at least one candidate resource in the candidate resourceset, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell,specifically including: if the candidate resource of the common searchspace of the current cell is a part of the candidate resource in thecandidate resource set, performing the detection on the candidateresource other than the candidate resource of the common search space ofthe current cell in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire thecommon control channel of the current cell.

In a nineteenth possible implementation by combining the first aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe first aspect to the fourth possible implementation of the firstaspect, before the performing the detection on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the method further includes:acquiring a PCI of the current cell. The method further includes:determining, according to the PCI of the current cell and/or positioninformation of a common control channel detected resource, a first partof resource of a common search space of the current cell; determining,according to common search space indication information carried by thecommon control channel of the current cell, a second part of resource ofthe common search space of the current cell; wherein an actual resourceof a common search space of the current cell includes the first part ofresource and the second part of resource.

In a twentieth possible implementation by combining the first aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe first aspect to the nineteenth possible implementation of the firstaspect, specifically including: a bandwidth of the virtual downlinkresources is greater than or equal to an actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell; and/or the bandwidth of the virtualdownlink resources is greater than or equal to a predefined downlinkresource bandwidth.

In a twenty first possible implementation by combining the first aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the first aspect to the twentieth possible implementation of thefirst aspect, specifically including: the common control channel carriesat least one of the following information: actual downlink resourcebandwidth information of the current cell, system radio frame number,antenna port number, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automaticrepeat request indicator channel (PHICH) configuration information,enhanced physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel(ePHICH) configuration information, scheduling information of a firstsystem information block (SIB1) in a system information block (SIB) andconfiguration information of the SIB other than the SIB1.

In a twenty second possible implementation by combining the first aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the first aspect to the twenty first possible implementation of thefirst aspect, the performing the detection on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, and more specifically, detecting,in a first subframe, a first common control channel of the current cellon a third candidate resource of the at least one candidate resource,and detecting, in a second subframe, a second common control channel ofthe current cell on a fourth candidate resource of the at least onecandidate resource, wherein the first subframe and the second subframeare two subframes with different times, the third candidate resource andthe fourth candidate resource have different frequency resourcepositions, and the first common control channel and the second commoncontrol channel carry a same original bit information.

A second aspect provides a method for transmitting a common controlchannel, including: selecting at least one first resource from acandidate resource set of a cell; and transmitting a common controlchannel of the cell on the at least one first resource.

In a first possible implementation by combining the second aspect, themethod further includes: determining the candidate resource set in anactual downlink resources of the cell.

In a second possible implementation by combining the second aspect orthe first possible implementation of the second aspect, the methodfurther includes: determining at least one first candidate resource fromthe candidate resource set according to a physical cell identifier PCIof the cell, wherein a number of the at least one first candidateresource is less than or equal to a number of candidate resources in thecandidate resource set; the selecting at least one first resource fromthe candidate resource set of the cell, includes: selecting the at leastone first resource from the at least one first candidate resource.

In a third possible implementation by combining the second aspect or thefirst possible implementation of the second aspect, and morespecifically, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset of the candidateresource set corresponds to one kind of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell.

In a fourth possible implementation by combining the third possibleimplementation of the second aspect, and more specifically, a resourceunit of the candidate resource in the candidate resource set has amaximum frequency domain width less than or equal to half of the actualdownlink resource bandwidth corresponding to the candidate resource inthe candidate resource set, and the resource unit is a physical blockPRB, a PRB pair, a control channel element or a resource element group,which consist of the candidate resource.

In a fifth possible implementation by combining the fourth possibleimplementation of the second aspect, and more specifically, one ofcandidate resources in the candidate resource subset is a frequencydomain shift copy of the other candidate resource in the candidateresource subset.

In a sixth possible implementation by combining the fifth possibleimplementation of the second aspect, and more specifically, one of thecandidate resources in the candidate resource subset is a frequencydomain shift copy of the other candidate resources in the candidateresource subset.

In a seventh possible implementation by combining any one possibleimplementation of the fourth possible implementation of the secondaspect to the sixth possible implementation of the second aspect, beforethe selecting at least one first resource from the candidate resourceset of the cell, the method further including: determining, according tothe actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell, a first candidateresource subset corresponding to the actual downlink resource bandwidthof the cell in the candidate resource set. The selecting at least onefirst resource from the candidate resource set of the cell, specificallyincluding: selecting the at least one first resource from the firstcandidate resource subset.

In an eighth possible implementation by combining the second aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe second aspect to the seventh possible implementation of the secondaspect, and more specifically, the common control channel of the cellfurther carries downlink resource bandwidth indication information forindicating actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell.

In a ninth possible implementation by combining the second aspect or anyone possible implementation of the first possible implementation of thesecond aspect to the eighth possible implementation of the secondaspect, and more specifically, the common control channel of the cellfurther carries resource position indication information for indicatinga positional relationship between the candidate resource which transmitsthe common control channel of the cell and the cell.

In a tenth possible implementation by combining the second aspect or anyone possible implementation of the first possible implementation of thesecond aspect to the ninth possible implementation of the second aspect,and more specifically, position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate an actual resource of a commonsearch space of the cell for a UE.

In an eleventh possible implementation by combining the second aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe second aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the secondaspect, and more specifically, the common control channel of the cellfurther carries a first common search space indication information forindicating the actual resource of the common search space of the cell.

In a twelfth possible implementation by combining the eleventh possibleimplementation of the second aspect, and more specifically, the actualresource indicated by the first common search space indicationinformation is all or a part of the candidate resource in the candidateresource set; or the actual resource indicated by the first commonsearch space indication information is all or a part of a candidateresource of a first common search space candidate resource setcorresponding to the candidate resource set.

In a thirteenth possible implementation by combining the second aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the second aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the secondaspect, and more specifically, the position information of the at leastone first resource is further used to indicate a candidate resource ofthe common search space of the cell for the UE; the common controlchannel of the cell further carries a second common search spaceindication information for indicating a position of the actual resourceof the common search space of the cell in the candidate resource of thecommon search space.

In a fourteenth possible implementation by combining the second aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the second aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the secondaspect, and more specifically, the position information of the at leastone first resource is further used to indicate a second common searchspace candidate resource set of the common search space of the cell forthe UE, and the second common search space candidate resource set is asubset of the candidate resource set or a subset of a first commonsearch space candidate resource set corresponding to the candidateresource set. The common control channel of the cell further carries athird common search space indication information for indicating aposition of the actual resource of the common search space of the cellin the second common search space candidate resource set.

In a fifteenth possible implementation by combining the second aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe second aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the secondaspect, and more specifically, the position information of the at leastone first resource is further used to indicate a first part of resourceof the common search space of the cell for the UE. The common controlchannel of the current cell further carries a fourth common search spaceindication information for indicating a second part of resources of thecommon search space of the current cell. The actual resource of thecommon search space of the current cell includes the first part ofresource and the second part of resource.

In a sixteenth possible implementation by combining the second aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe second aspect to the fifteenth possible implementation of the secondaspect, the selecting at least one first resource from the candidateresource set of the cell, specifically including: if the candidateresource of the common search space of the cell is a part of candidateresource in the candidate resource set, selecting at least one firstresource from candidate resources other than resource of the commonsearch space of the cell in the candidate resource set.

In a seventeenth possible implementation by combining the second aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the second aspect to the sixteenth possible implementation of thesecond aspect, and more specifically, the common control channel carriesat least one of the following information: actual downlink resourcebandwidth information of the cell, system radio frame number, antennaport number, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automatic repeatrequest indicator channel PHICH configuration information, enhancedphysical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel ePHICHconfiguration information, scheduling information of a first systeminformation block SIB1 in a system information block SIB andconfiguration information of the SIB other than the SIB1.

In an eighteenth possible implementation by combining the second aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the second aspect to the seventeenth possible implementation of thesecond aspect, the transmitting the common control channel of the cellon the at least one first resource, specifically including:transmitting, in a first subframe, a first common control channel of thecell on a third candidate resource in the at least one first resource,and transmitting, in a second subframe, a second common control channelof the cell on a fourth candidate resource in the at least one firstresource, wherein the first subframe and the second subframe aresubframes with two different times, the third candidate resource and thefourth candidate resource have different frequency resource positions,and the first common control channel and the second common controlchannel carry a same original bit information.

A third aspect provides a user equipment includes: a determination unit,configured to determine a candidate resource set within virtual downlinkresources of a current cell, wherein the candidate resource set includesat least one candidate resource carrying a common control channel of thecurrent cell; a detection unit, configured to perform a detection on atleast one candidate resource in the candidate resource set, so as toacquire the common control channel of the current cell.

In a first possible implementation by combining the third aspect,further includes: a first acquisition unit, configured to acquirefrequency domain position information of the current cell, wherein thefrequency domain position information includes a central frequency pointposition of the current cell and/or a frequency domain central resourceposition of the current cell. The determination unit is furtherconfigured to determine the virtual downlink resources according to thefrequency domain position information.

In a second possible implementation by combining the third aspect or thefirst possible implementation of the third aspect, and morespecifically, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to one kind of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell.

In a third possible implementation by combining the second possibleimplementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, a resourceunit of the candidate resource in the candidate resource subset has amaximum frequency domain width less than or equal to half of the actualdownlink resource bandwidth corresponding to the candidate resourcesubset, and the resource unit is a physical block PRB, a PRB pair, acontrol channel element or a resource element group, which consist ofthe candidate resource in the candidate resource subset.

In a fourth possible implementation by combining the third possibleimplementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, one ofcandidate resources in the candidate resource subset is a frequencydomain shift copy of the other candidate resource in the candidateresource subset.

In a fifth possible implementation by combining any one possibleimplementation of the second possible implementation of the third aspectto the fourth possible implementation of the third aspect, furtherincludes: a second acquisition unit, configured to acquire a physicalcell identifier PCI of the current cell; the determination unit isfurther configured to determine at least one first candidate resourcerespectively in each candidate resource subset in the candidate resourceset according to the PCI; the detection unit is specifically configuredto perform the detection on the at least one first candidate resource,so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell.

In a sixth possible implementation by combining the third aspect or thefirst possible implementation of the third aspect, further includes: asecond acquisition unit, configured to acquire a PCI of the currentcell. The detection unit is further specifically configured to performthe detection on at least one candidate resource in the candidateresource set according to the PCI, so as to acquire the common controlchannel of the current cell.

In a seventh possible implementation by combining the third aspect orthe first possible implementation of the third aspect, further includes:a second acquisition unit, configured to acquire a PCI of the currentcell; the determination unit is specifically configured to determine atleast one first candidate resource from the candidate resource setaccording to the PCI, and a number of the at least one first candidateresource is less than or equal to a number of candidate resources in thecandidate resource set; the detection unit is specifically configured toperform the detection on the at least one first candidate resource, soas to acquire the common control channel of the current cell.

In an eighth possible implementation by combining the third aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe third aspect to the seventh possible implementation of the thirdaspect, and more specifically, the determination unit is furtherconfigured to determine, according to position information of a commoncontrol channel detected resource, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell, wherein the common control channeldetected resource is a candidate resource detecting the common controlchannel of the current cell; or the determination unit is furtherconfigured to determine, according to downlink resource bandwidthindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell, the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the currentcell.

In a ninth possible implementation by combining the eighth possibleimplementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, thedetermination unit is specifically configured to determine, according toan common control channel detected resource of a cell to be determined,a first downlink resource bandwidth; and if a positional relationshipbetween the common control channel detected resource of the cell to bedetermined and the current cell conforms to a positional relationshipindicated by resource position indication information carried by acommon control channel of the cell to be determined, the determinationunit is further specifically configured to determine that the firstdownlink resource bandwidth is the actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe current cell, wherein the resource position indication informationcarried by the common control channel of the cell to be determinedindicates the positional relationship between the common control channeldetected resource of the cell to be determined and the cell to bedetermined.

In a tenth possible implementation by combining the eighth possibleimplementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to determine,according to downlink resource bandwidth indication information carriedby a common control channel of the cell to be determined, a seconddownlink resource bandwidth; if a common control channel detectedresource of the cell to be determined is within a frequency resourcerange of an undetermined downlink resource of the current cell, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to determine thatthe second downlink resource bandwidth is the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell, wherein the undetermined downlinkresource of the current cell is a cell downlink resource when the seconddownlink resource bandwidth is a bandwidth of the current cell.

In an eleventh possible implementation by combining the third aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe third aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the thirdaspect, and more specifically, the determination unit is furtherspecifically configured to determine, according to position informationof a common control channel detected resource, an actual resource of acommon search space of the current cell, wherein the common controlchannel detected resource is a candidate resource detecting the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, and the actual resource is aresource actually used by the common search space of the current cell.

In a twelfth possible implementation by combining the eleventh possibleimplementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to acquire,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resource, a candidate resource where the common control channeldetected resource is located and determine, and according tocorresponding relationship between candidate resources of the commonsearch space and candidate resources of the common control channel, thata candidate resource of the common search space corresponding to thecandidate resource where the common control channel detected resource islocated is the actual resource of the common search space, wherein thecandidate resources of the common search space are candidate resourcesin the candidate resource set or candidate resources in a first commonsearch space candidate resource set corresponding to the candidateresource set.

In a thirteenth possible implementation by combining the third aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe third aspect to the twelfth possible implementation of the thirdaspect, and more specifically, the determination unit is furtherconfigured to determine, according to common search space indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the current cell,an actual resource of a common search space of the current cell, whereinthe actual resource is a resource actually used by the common searchspace of the current cell.

In a fourteenth possible implementation by combining the thirteenthpossible implementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to determine thatall or a part of candidate resource in the candidate resources indicatedby the common search space indication information is the actualresources of the common search space of the current cell, wherein thecandidate resources indicated by the common search space indicationinformation are candidate resources in the candidate resource set orcandidate resources in a first common search space candidate resourceset corresponding to the candidate resource set.

In a fifteenth possible implementation by combining the thirteenthpossible implementation of the third aspect or the fourteenth possibleimplementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to determine,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resource and the common search space indication informationcarried by the common control channel of the current cell, the actualresource of the common search space of the current cell, wherein thecommon control channel detected resource is a candidate resourcedetecting the common control channel of the current cell.

In a sixteenth possible implementation by combining the fifteenthpossible implementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to determine,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resource, a second common search space candidate resource setof the current cell, and determine, according to the common search spaceindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell and the second common search space candidate resource set,the actual resource of the common search space of the current cell,wherein the second common search space candidate resource set is asubset of the candidate resource set or a subset of the first commonsearch space candidate resource set corresponding to the candidateresource set.

In a seventeenth possible implementation by combining the third aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the third aspect to the fourth possible implementation of the thirdaspect, further includes: a second acquisition unit, configured toacquire a PCI of the current cell. The determination unit is furtherconfigured to determine, according to the PCI, all or a part of acandidate resource in the candidate resource set is a candidate resourceof a common search space of the current cell.

In an eighteenth possible implementation by combining the seventeenthpossible implementation of the third aspect, and more specifically, ifthe candidate resource of the common search space of the current cell isa part of the candidate resource in the candidate resource set, thedetermination unit is further specifically configured to perform thedetection on the candidate resource other than the candidate resource ofthe common search space of the current cell in the candidate resourceset, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell.

In a nineteenth possible implementation by combining the third aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe third aspect to the fourth possible implementation of the thirdaspect, further includes: a second acquisition unit, configured toacquire a PCI of the current cell. The determination unit is furtherspecifically configured to determine, according to the PCI of thecurrent cell and/or position information of a common control channeldetected resource, a first part of resource of a common search space ofthe current cell, and determine, according to the common search spaceindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell, a second part of resource of the common search space ofthe current cell. An actual resource of a common search space of thecurrent cell includes the first part of resource and the second part ofresource.

In a twentieth possible implementation by combining the third aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe third aspect to the nineteenth possible implementation of the thirdaspect, and more specifically, a bandwidth of the virtual downlinkresources is greater than or equal to an actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell; and/or the bandwidth of the virtualdownlink resources is greater than or equal to a predefined downlinkresource bandwidth.

In a twenty first possible implementation by combining the third aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the third aspect to the twentieth possible implementation of thethird aspect, and more specifically, the common control channel carriesat least one of the following information: actual downlink resourcebandwidth information of the current cell, system radio frame number,antenna port number, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automaticrepeat request indicator channel (PHICH) configuration information,enhanced physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel(ePHICH) configuration information, scheduling information of a firstsystem information block (SIB1) in a system information block (SIB) andconfiguration information of the SIB other than the SIB1.

In a twenty second possible implementation by combining the third aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the third aspect to the twenty first possible implementation of thethird aspect, and more specifically, the detection unit is furtherspecifically configured to detect, in a first subframe, a first commoncontrol channel of the current cell on a third candidate resource of theat least one candidate resource, and detect, in a second subframe, asecond common control channel of the current cell on a fourth candidateresource of the at least one candidate resource, wherein the firstsubframe and the second subframe are two subframes with different times,the third candidate resource and the fourth candidate resource havedifferent frequency resource positions, and the first common controlchannel and the second common control channel carry a same original bitinformation.

A fourth aspect provides a base station, including: a selection unit,configured to select at least one first resource from a candidateresource set of a cell; and a transmission unit, configured to transmita common control channel of the cell on the at least one first resource.

In a first possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect,further includes: a determination unit, configured to determine thecandidate resource set in an actual downlink resource of the cell.

In a second possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect orthe first possible implementation of the fourth aspect, and morespecifically, the determination unit is further configured to determineat least one first candidate resource from the candidate resource setaccording to a physical cell identifier (PCI) of the cell, wherein anumber of the at least one first candidate resource is less than orequal to a number of candidate resources in the candidate resource set;the selection unit is further specifically configured to select the atleast one first resource from the at least one first candidate resource.

In a third possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect or thefirst possible implementation of the fourth aspect, and morespecifically, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset of the candidateresource set corresponds to one kind of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell.

In a fourth possible implementation by combining the third possibleimplementation of the fourth aspect, and more specifically, a resourceunit of the candidate resource in the candidate resource set has amaximum frequency domain width less than or equal to half of the actualdownlink resource bandwidth corresponding to the candidate resource inthe candidate resource set, and the resource unit is a physical blockPRB, a PRB pair, a control channel element or a resource element group,which consist of the candidate resource.

In a fifth possible implementation by combining the fourth possibleimplementation of the fourth aspect, and more specifically, one ofcandidate resources in the candidate resource subset is a frequencydomain shift copy of the other candidate resource in the candidateresource subset.

In a sixth possible implementation by combining the fifth possibleimplementation of the fourth aspect, and more specifically, one of thecandidate resources in the candidate resource subset is a frequencydomain shift copy of the other candidate resource in the candidateresource subset.

In a seventh possible implementation by combining any one possibleimplementation of the fourth possible implementation of the fourthaspect to the sixth possible implementation of the fourth aspect, andmore specifically, the determination unit is further configured todetermine, according to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecell, a first candidate resource subset corresponding to the actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the cell in the candidate resource set;the selection unit is specifically configured to select the at least onefirst resource from the first candidate resource subset.

In an eighth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe fourth aspect to the seventh possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, the common control channel of the cellfurther carries downlink resource bandwidth indication information forindicating the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell.

In a ninth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect or anyone possible implementation of the first possible implementation of thefourth aspect to the eighth possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, the common control channel of the cellfurther carries resource position indication information for indicatinga positional relationship between the candidate resource which transmitsthe common control channel of the cell and the cell.

In a tenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect or anyone possible implementation of the first possible implementation of thefourth aspect to the ninth possible implementation of the fourth aspect,and more specifically, position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate an actual resource of a commonsearch space of the cell for a UE.

In an eleventh possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe fourth aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, the common control channel of the cellfurther carries a first common search space indication information forindicating the actual resource of the common search space of the cell.

In a twelfth possible implementation by combining the eleventh possibleimplementation of the fourth aspect, and more specifically, the actualresource indicated by the first common search space indicationinformation is all or a part of the candidate resource in the candidateresource set; or the actual resource indicated by the first commonsearch space indication information is all or a part of a candidateresource of the first common search space candidate resource setcorresponding to the candidate resource set.

In a thirteenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the fourth aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, the position information of the at leastone first resource is further used to indicate candidate resource of acommon search space of the cell for the UE; the common control channelof the cell further carries a second common search space indicationinformation for indicating a position of the actual resource of thecommon search space of the cell in the candidate resource of the commonsearch space.

In a fourteenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the fourth aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, the position information of the at leastone first resource is further used to indicate a second common searchspace candidate resource set of the common search space of the cell forthe UE, and the second common search space candidate resource set is asubset of the candidate resource set or a subset of a first commonsearch space candidate resource set corresponding to the candidateresource set. The common control channel of the cell further carries athird common search space indication information for indicating aposition of the actual resource of the common search space of the cellin the second common search space candidate resource set.

In a fifteenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe fourth aspect to the tenth possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, the position information of the at leastone first resource is further used to indicate a first part of resourceof a common search space of the cell for the UE. The common controlchannel of the current cell further carries a fourth common search spaceindication information for indicating a second part of resource of thecommon search space of the current cell. The actual resource of thecommon search space of the current cell includes the first part ofresource and the second part of resource.

In a sixteenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspect orany one possible implementation of the first possible implementation ofthe fourth aspect to the fifteenth possible implementation of the fourthaspect, and more specifically, if the candidate resource of the commonsearch space of the cell is a part of candidate resource in thecandidate resource set, the selection unit is specifically configured toselect at least one first resource from candidate resources other thanresource of the common search space of the cell in the candidateresource set.

In a seventeenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspector any one possible implementation of the first possible implementationof the fourth aspect to the sixteenth possible implementation of thefourth aspect, and more specifically, the common control channel carriesat least one of the following information: actual downlink resourcebandwidth information of the cell, system radio frame number, antennaport number, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automatic repeatrequest indicator channel (PHICH) configuration information, enhancedphysical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel (ePHICH)configuration information, scheduling information of a first systeminformation block (SIB1) in a system information block (SIB) andconfiguration information of the SIB other than the SIB1.

In an eighteenth possible implementation by combining the fourth aspector any one possible implementation of the seventeenth possibleimplementation of the fourth aspect to the sixteenth possibleimplementation of the fourth aspect, and more specifically, theselection unit is specifically configured to transmit, in a firstsubframe, a first common control channel of the cell on a thirdcandidate resource in the at least one first resource, and transmit, ina second subframe, a second common control channel of the cell on afourth candidate resource in the at least one first resource, where thefirst subframe and the second subframe are two subframes with differenttimes, the third candidate resource and the fourth candidate resourcehave different frequency resource positions, and the first commoncontrol channel and the second common control channel carry a sameoriginal bit information.

Embodiments of the present invention provide a detecting method, atransmitting method and an apparatus for a common control channel, and aselection range of resources for transmitting a common control channelis extended, so that inter-cell interference of the common controlchannel can be coordinated, and a detection performance of the commoncontrol channel can be improved.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS

To illustrate the technical solutions in embodiments of the presentinvention more clearly, accompanying drawings needed in the descriptionof the embodiments are illustrated briefly in the following. Apparently,the accompanying drawings in the following description show certainembodiments of the present invention, and persons skilled in the art canderive other drawings from them without creative efforts.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart of a method for detecting a common controlchannel according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a relationship between virtual downlinkresources and actual downlink resources according to an embodiment ofthe present invention.

FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of candidate resources of cells with thesame PCI according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of 6 downlink resource bandwidthssupported by a cell according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of bandwidths and candidate resources oftwo cells according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a method for transmitting a common controlchannel according to an embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 7 is a schematic block diagram of a user equipment according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 8 is a schematic block diagram of a base station according to anembodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of a user equipment according toanother embodiment of the present invention.

FIG. 10 is a schematic block diagram of a base station according toanother embodiment of the present invention.

DESCRIPTION OF EMBODIMENTS

The technical solutions in the embodiments of the present invention arehereinafter described clearly with reference to the accompanyingdrawings in the embodiments of the present invention. Obviously, theembodiments described here are part of the embodiments of the inventionand not all of the embodiments. All other embodiments, which can bederived by persons skilled in the art from the embodiments given hereinwithout creative efforts, shall fall within the protection scope of thepresent invention.

The technical solutions of the present invention are applicable tovarious communication systems, such as global system of mobilecommunication (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA) system,wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA), general packet radioservice (GPRS), long term evolution (LTE), etc.

A user equipment (UE) also can be called a mobile terminal, a mobileuser equipment and so on, which can communicate with one or more corenetworks via a wireless access network (such as, RAN, Radio AccessNetwork), and the user equipment can be a mobile terminal, such as amobile phone (or a “cellular” phone) and a computer with a mobileterminal, and thus can be, for example, portable, pocket, hand-held,computer-included, or car-mounted mobile devices which communicate voiceand/or data with a radio access network.

The base station can be a base station (BTS, Base Transceiver Station)in GSM or CDMA, or a base station (NodeB) in WCDMA, or an evolved Node B(eNB or e-NodeB, evolutional Node B) in LTE, and the present inventionis not limited thereto, for ease of description only, the embodimentsbelow will be described taking an eNB as an example.

FIG. 1 is a flow chart of a method for detecting a common controlchannel according to an embodiment of the present invention, and themethod in FIG. 1 is implemented by a UE.

101, determine a candidate resource set within virtual downlinkresources of a current cell. Wherein, the candidate resource set caninclude at least one candidate resource carrying a common controlchannel of the current cell.

The virtual downlink resources are frequency resources of the UE todetect the common control channel of the current cell, in other words,the UE detects the common control channel of the current cell within arange of frequency resources of the virtual downlink resources. Thevirtual downlink resources include at least a part of actual downlinkresources of the current cell. The candidate resource set is a set of atleast one candidate resource in the virtual downlink resources, and thecandidate resource is a downlink resource possibly selected by thecommon control channel of the current cell. The candidate resource setincludes at least one candidate resource of a common control channel ofthe current cell.

The common control channel according to embodiments of the presentinvention is configured to carry information carried by a physicalbroadcasting channel (Physical Broadcasting Channel, PBCH) and all or apart of information carried by a control channel of a scheduling systeminformation block (SIB). The specific manner of the common controlchannel is not limited in embodiments of the present invention, forexample, the common control channel can utilize the PBCH and the SIB, orutilize an enhanced physical broadcasting channel (ePBCH), or utilize anenhanced physical downlink control channel, or utilize other physicalchannels.

102, perform a detection on at least one candidate resource in thecandidate resource set, so as to acquire the common control channel ofthe current cell.

In the embodiments of the present invention, the candidate resource setwithin the virtual downlink resources of the current cell is acquired,and the detection is performed in the candidate resource set so as toacquire the common control channel of the cell, so that inter-cellinterference of the common control channel can be coordinated, and adetection performance of the common control channel can be improved.

The “cell” mentioned in embodiments of the present invention cancorrespond to a carrier for carrying a common control channel. In an LTEsingle carrier system, the only one carrier corresponds to one PCI, soit can be interpreted as or equivalent to one cell; in an LTEmulti-carrier system, each carrier corresponds to one PCI, and PCIs ofmultiple carriers are separately configured, which can be the same ordifferent, and thus different carriers also can be interpreted asdifferent cells. Therefore, the cell and the carrier are notdistinguished in embodiments of the present invention. For ease ofdescription, the following is described in terms of the cell. Inaddition, the “current cells” mentioned in embodiments of the presentinvention all refer to cells to which the UE is ready to access orreside.

FIG. 2 is a schematic diagram of a relationship between virtual downlinkresources and actual downlink resources of a current cell of a UEaccording to an embodiment of the present invention. Arrows 201 refer toactual downlink resources of the current cell. Arrows 202 refer tovirtual downlink resources. Arrows 203 refer to candidate resources inthe virtual downlink resources. An arrow 204 indicates resources usedwhen the current cell transmits a common control channel.

As shown in FIG. 2, a bandwidth of the virtual downlink resources can begreater than or equal to a bandwidth of the actual downlink resources ofthe current cell. For example, the bandwidth of the actual downlinkresources is 5 MHz, and the bandwidth of the virtual downlink resourcescan be predefined as 20 MHz or 10 MHz. The bandwidth of the virtualdownlink resources can also be greater than or equal to a predefinedbandwidth of frequency domain resources, for example, it is greater thanor equal to a frequency domain width of six physical resource blockpairs (PRB Pair). For example, the bandwidth of the virtual downlinkresources can be predefined as 20 MHz or 10 MHz. In this way, when theactual bandwidth is greater than six PRB pairs, larger degree of freedomof the interference coordination can be guaranteed. Therefore, thebandwidth of the virtual downlink resources can be interpreted to bedifferent from the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the currentcell, for example, the bandwidth of the virtual downlink resources canbe greater than the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the currentcell; or, in some scenario, for example, the bandwidth of the virtualdownlink resources is 10 MHz, but 20 MHz of the bandwidth of the actualdownlink resources is also possible; or, the bandwidth of the actualdownlink resources can just be equal to the bandwidth of the virtualdownlink resources; or the bandwidth of the virtual downlink resourcescan be a frequency domain width of six PRBs at a predefined frequencycenter.

Optionally, before the determining the candidate resource set within thevirtual downlink resources of the current cell, the method furtherincludes: acquire frequency domain position information of the currentcell, and determine the virtual downlink resources according to thefrequency domain position information. The frequency domain positioninformation includes a central frequency point position of the currentcell and/or a frequency domain central resource position of the currentcell. One possible determining manner is that, the virtual downlinkresources are symmetrical and centered on the frequency domain resourcesindicated by the frequency domain position information or the centralfrequency point position.

Optionally, before the determining the candidate resource set within thevirtual downlink resources of the current cell in step 101, a PCI of thecurrent cell also can be acquired. The UE can acquire the PCI of thecurrent cell by detecting a synchronization signal. After detecting thesynchronization signal, the UE can determine the PCI of the current cellaccording to PSS and SSS. At this point, in step 102, the common controlchannel of the current cell can be detected on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set according to the PCI. Optionally,as another embodiment, the UE can descramble and decode demodulatedinformation on the candidate resource in the candidate resource setaccording to the PCI. If the descrambling and decoding are successful,it indicates that the information detected on the candidate resourcebelongs to the common control channel of the current cell.

Further, before the step 102, the PCI of the current cell also can beacquired, and at least one first candidate resource is determined fromthe candidate resource set according to the PCI, where the number of theat least one first candidate resource is less than or equal to thenumber of the candidate resources in the candidate resource set. At thispoint, in the step 102, the detection is performed on at least one firstcandidate resource so as to acquire the common control channel of thecurrent cell, and the method for acquiring PCI of the current cell bythe UE is similar to the method above, after detecting thesynchronization signal, the UE can determine the PCI of the current cellaccording to PSS and SSS. Optionally, as another embodiment, the UEdetermines one or more first candidate resources from a plurality ofcandidate resources according to the PCI, and the one or more firstcandidate resources are resources of the current cell, which are likelyto transmit the common control channel. One possible determining methodis to perform a modulus on the total number of the candidate resourcesin the candidate resource set with the PCI serial number of the currentcell, and the obtained remainder is a candidate resource label of thecommon control channel transmitted by the current cell. Of course, theembodiments of the present invention also can use other methods fordetermining the first candidate resource according to the PCI. Forexample, the first candidate resource also can be determined accordingto a subframe label. For example, there are ten subframe labels 1 to 10in total, if the UE detects the common control channel on the i-th (i isa natural number less than or equal to 10) subframe, the specific labelof the first candidate resource in the candidate resource set can bedetermined according to the i.

Optionally, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset. Each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to one kind of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell. The candidate resource subset can bedetermined by pre-configuration or pre-negotiation, or the candidateresource subset can be determined by subset division of the candidateresource set through the PCI, and embodiments of the present inventionare not limited thereto.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the current cell can have two kindsof actual downlink resource bandwidths, that is, a first actual downlinkresource bandwidth and a second actual downlink resource bandwidth.Correspondingly, the candidate resource set includes a first candidateresource subset and a second candidate resource subset, each of whichincludes at least one candidate resource, and the candidate resource ofthe first candidate resource subset corresponds to the first actualdownlink resource bandwidth, and the candidate resource of the secondcandidate resource subset corresponds to the second actual downlinkresource bandwidth. When the UE detects the common control channeltransmitted by the current cell in the candidate resource in the firstcandidate resource subset, it can be determined that the bandwidth ofthe current cell is the first actual downlink resource bandwidth; whenthe UE detects the common control channel transmitted by the currentcell in the candidate resource in the second candidate resource subset,it can be determined that the bandwidth of the current cell is thesecond actual downlink resource bandwidth.

Optionally, the same candidate resource can be included in differentcandidate resource subsets. For example, a certain candidate resourcecan both belong to the first candidate resource subset and belong to thesecond candidate resource subset. In this way, the times of blinddetection by the UE can be reduced. At this point, the actual downlinkbandwidth of the current cell can be determined by combining indicationinformation of the downlink resource bandwidth.

Further, a resource unit of the candidate resources in the candidateresource set has a maximum frequency domain width which is less than orequal to half of the actual downlink resource bandwidth corresponding tothe candidate resources, and the resource unit can be a physicalresource block (PRB), a PRB pair, a control channel element or aresource element group, which consist of the candidate resource in thecandidate resource set. For example, if one candidate resource occupiestwo control channel elements, then the resource unit can be a controlchannel element.

Further, one of the candidate resources in the candidate resource subsetis a frequency domain shift copy of the other candidate resource in thecandidate resource subset. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of candidateresources of cells with the same PCI according to an embodiment of thepresent invention. FIGS. 3 (a), (b) and (c) are three sets of differentsolutions for candidate resources, the bottom left corner of each set isa schematic diagram of candidate resources of cell 1, the middle on thetop is a schematic diagram of candidate resources of cell 0, and thebottom right corner is a schematic diagram of candidate resources ofcell 2. For purposes of explanation, it is assumed that one candidateresource consists of two PRB pairs, that is, the resource unitcorresponds to the PRB pair, but the manner of forming the candidateresources is not limited in the embodiments of the present invention. Asshown in FIG. 3, it is assumed that three actual downlink resourcebandwidths are 3 MHz, 5 MHz and 10 MHz respectively, and other cases aresimilar thereto. It is assumed that the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of cell 0 is 3 MHz, cell 1 and cell 2, which are adjacent tocell 0 to the left and right respectively, both are 10 MHz, and thethree cells have the same PCI, that is, it is assumed that the threecells are deployed in one geographical position.

FIG. 3 shows the candidate resource corresponding to each actualdownlink resource bandwidth, and it can be seen from FIG. 3( a) that,the candidate resources corresponding to an actual bandwidth of 10 MHzwithin the virtual downlink bandwidth of cell 0 are overlapped with thecandidate resources, which actually transmit the common control channel,of cell 1 and cell 2 (a candidate resource position pointed to by “Z2”in FIG. 3( a)), which may cause a problem of fuzzy bandwidth detection.Specifically, a UE trying to detect the common control channel of cell 0may detect a common control channel of 10 MHz on the candidate resourcesof cell 1 or cell 2, which may cause the UE to mistake the actualbandwidth of cell 0 for 10 MHz, and cause fuzzy bandwidth detection. Theproblem of fuzzy bandwidth detection can be circumvented by a method forallocating candidate resources in FIG. 3( b) and FIG. 3( c).

As shown in FIG. 3( b), the frequency domain width between two PRB pairsin each candidate resource is half of the actual downlink resourcebandwidth corresponding to the candidate resource, and a plurality ofcandidate resources corresponding to the actual downlink resourcebandwidth are frequency domain shift copies of each other. FIG. 3( c)shows a case after shift of FIG. 3( b). It can be seen that, neither acase of candidate resource overlapping shown in FIG. 3( a) nor theproblem of fuzzy bandwidth detection will occur.

Further, before the step 102, the PCI of the current cell is acquired;at least one first candidate resource is determined respectively in eachcandidate resource subset in the candidate resource set according to thePCI. At this point, in step 102, the detection is performed on the atleast one first candidate resource, so as to acquire the common controlchannel of the current cell. It is assumed that the current cell canselect to use two actual downlink resource bandwidths, that is, a firstactual downlink resource bandwidth and a second actual downlink resourcebandwidth, and the candidate resource set includes a first candidateresource subset and a second candidate resource subset, whichrespectively correspond to the first actual downlink resource bandwidthand the second actual downlink resource bandwidth. After the PCI of thecurrent cell is acquired by detecting the synchronization signal, atleast one first candidate resource can be determined respectively fromthe first candidate resource subset and the second candidate resourcesubset according to the PCI of the current cell, and the common controlchannel of the current cell is detected on the first candidate resourcerespectively determined by the two candidate resource subsets.

In an optional solution, one first candidate resource is determined ineach candidate resource subset. In another embodiment, for example,there are six actual downlink resource bandwidths, six correspondingcandidate resources are selected respectively according to the PCI foractual detection of common control channel, so it is not necessary toperform blind detection on all the candidate resources in the candidateresource set, and the times of blind detection by the UE can be reduced.Specifically, the selection step can be achieved by a modulo operationof PCI values. For example, a modulo operation can be performed to thenumber of candidate resources in each subset with the PCI, if an actualdownlink resource bandwidth of 3 MHz corresponds to 5 candidateresources, actual downlink resource bandwidths of 5 MHz and 10 MHzrespectively correspond to 10 and 20 candidate resources, and thenperform a modulo operation to the three values above with the PCI valueso as to the achieve selection or determination step.

The rule for determining or selecting candidate resources correspondingto different actual downlink resource bandwidths is unified, forexample, translating from a low frequency side to a high frequency sideone by one to determine or select candidate resources, as shown in FIG.3( b) and FIG. 3( c), candidate resources corresponding to differentactual downlink resource bandwidths are selected according to a unifiedrule, certainly also can selected from a high frequency to a lowfrequency, so that it can guarantee that the determined candidateresources corresponding to a plurality of actual downlink resourcebandwidths do not overlap with each other, and the problem of fuzzybandwidth detection shown in FIG. 3( a) can be avoided.

Generally, the central frequency point of the current cell can beacquired when the synchronization signal is detected. Therefore, afterthe UE determines the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the currentcell, the actual downlink resources of the current cell can bedetermined.

Optionally, after the step 102, according to position information ofcommon control channel detected resources, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell is further determined, where the commoncontrol channel detected resources are candidate resources detecting thecommon control channel of the current cell.

FIG. 4 is a schematic diagram of 6 downlink resource bandwidthssupported by a cell according to an embodiment of the present invention.In an embodiment of the present invention, the UE determines, accordingto the detected resource position information for the first candidateresource of the common control channel, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell.

It is assumed that the base station side supports six actual downlinkresource bandwidths ranked from small to large, B1, B2 . . . B6, asshown in FIG. 4. If the UE detects the common control channel on acertain candidate resource within a range of B1, then the UE canimplicitly determine the actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell is B1; if the UE detects the common control channel on acertain candidate resource within a range of B2 other than B1, then theUE can implicitly determine the actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe current cell is B2; and so forth, if the common control channel isdetected within a range of B2-B3, B3-B4, B4-B5 and B5-B6, it can bedetermined respectively that the actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe current cell is B3, B4, B5 and B6. According to the method inembodiments of the present invention, the base station can support Nactual downlink resource bandwidths, where N is a positive integer, notlimited to the six types illustrated above. According to the resourceposition information of the first candidate resource which detects thecommon control channel, it is not necessary for the base station toexplicitly indicate the actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell within the common control channel, so that overhead can besaved.

Further, the first downlink resource bandwidth can be determinedaccording to the common control channel detected resources of a cell tobe determined, if the cell to be determined is the current cell, thefirst downlink resource bandwidth is the actual downlink bandwidth ofthe current cell corresponding to the common control channel detectedresources of the cell to be determined; if positional relationshipbetween the common control channel detected resources of the cell to bedetermined and the current cell conforms to the positional relationshipindicated by resource position indication information carried by thecommon control channel of the cell to be determined, then it can bedetermined that the first downlink resource bandwidth is an actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, where the resourceposition indication information carried by the common control channel ofthe cell to be determined indicates the positional relationship betweenthe common control channel detected resources of the cell to bedetermined and the cell to be determined.

FIG. 5 is a schematic diagram of bandwidths and candidate resources oftwo cells according to an embodiment of the present invention. Accordingto an embodiment of the present invention, as shown in FIGS. 5, 307 and308 are different cells, a frequency resource bandwidth of cell 307 is 5MHz, and a frequency resource bandwidth of cell 308 is 10 MHz. 309 is avirtual resource bandwidth of cell 307, and 301-305 are candidateresources in the virtual resource 309. The candidate resources of301-303 indicate a frequency resource bandwidth of the cell where theyare located is 5 MHz, and candidate resources of 304 and 305 indicate afrequency resource bandwidth of the cell where they are located is 10MHz. If the common control channel is detected in 304, at this point,the common control channel actually is the common control channel ofcell 308. However, if the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cellis determined only according to resource position information ofcandidate resources of the common control channel, or only according todownlink resource bandwidth indication information of the common controlchannel, then it is possible to mistake the resources indicated by 306for the actual downlink resource of the cell 307.

In order to solve the problem of fuzzy bandwidth detection, resourceposition indication information can be added in the common controlchannel, and the resource position indication information can beexpressed by bits, scrambling codes or other information of the commoncontrol channel, which are not limited herein. The resource positionindication information indicates positional relationship between thecurrently detected common control channel and the cell which thedetected common control channel corresponds to or belongs to, forexample, it indicates a position of the detected common control channelwith respect to a central frequency point of the cell which the detectedcommon control channel belongs to, for example, the detected commoncontrol channel is at a low frequency side or a high frequency side ofthe central frequency point, that is, the candidate resource 304 in FIG.5 is located on the left of the cell 308 which the candidate resource304 belongs to (i.e., the low frequency side, assuming that thefrequency gradually increases from left to right), then the UE canidentify the detected candidate resource 304 does not belong to cell 1,because the candidate resource 304 is on the right of the centralfrequency point of cell 307, and such post-checking or post-verificationfunction can solve the problem of fuzzy bandwidth.

Of course, the above position information also can be other similarinformation, such as for indicating a positional relationship betweenthe detected candidate resources and a boundary of the cell which thedetected candidate resources belong to, or indicating a positionalrelationship between the detected candidate resources and the cell (suchas, cell 307 in FIG. 5) to be detected by the UE, and so on, which isnot limited herein, as long as the problem of fuzzy bandwidth can besolved.

Optionally, after the step 102, further determine, according to downlinkresource bandwidth indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, the actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe current cell. According to an embodiment of the present invention,the UE determines, according to downlink resource bandwidth indicationinformation carried by the common control channel, the actual downlinkresource bandwidth of the current cell. For example, the UE can acquirebits for indicating the actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell from the detected ePBCH, for instance, the detectedinformation bits of “001”, “100” and “110” can respectively indicatethat the actual downlink resource bandwidths of the current cell are 5MHz, 10 MHz and 20 MHz. The actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell can be explicitly determined according to downlink resourcebandwidth indication information carried by the common control channel.Or, the actual downlink resource bandwidth can be indicated with cyclicredundancy check (CRC) mask carried by the detected ePBCH, or with acombination of bit and mask, or the like. Further, the UE can determinethe actual downlink resources of the current cell.

Further, the second downlink resource bandwidth can be determinedaccording to downlink resource bandwidth indication information carriedby the common control channel of the cell to be determined, and thesecond downlink resource bandwidth is the downlink resource bandwidth ofthe common control channel of the cell to be determined; if the commoncontrol channel detected resources of the cell to be determined arewithin a frequency resource range of undetermined downlink resources ofthe current cell, then it can be determined that the second downlinkresource bandwidth is the actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell, where the undetermined downlink resources of the currentcell are cell downlink resources when the second downlink resourcebandwidth is the cell bandwidth in the current cell.

The UE can determine, according to downlink resource bandwidthindication information carried by the common control channel of the cellto be determined, a second downlink resource bandwidth, and then judgeswhether the candidate resources detecting the common control channel ofthe cell to be determined are within a range of the current cell,according to positional relationship between the candidate resourcesdetecting the common control channel of the cell to be determined andthe current cell (for example, the relationship between the position ofthe candidate resources and the position of the central frequency pointof the cell to be determined). For example, it is assumed that twoneighboring cells A and B have the same PCI, and the same bandwidth of 5MHz, and it is assumed that A is the current cell of the UE, and thecommon control channel is detected on a certain resource c of B, andthen the UE can judge that resource c does not belong to the currentcell A according to positional relationship (greater than 2.5 MHz)between resource c and the central frequency point of A.

Optionally, after the step 102, further determine, according to positioninformation of the common control channel detected resources, resourcesof common search space of the current cell. The common control channeldetected resources are candidate resources detecting the common controlchannel of the current cell, and the actual resources are resourcesactually used by the common search space of the current cell.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it is assumed thatat least one candidate resource included in the candidate resource setof the common control channel is resources a, b, c and d. It is assumedthat the UE detects the common control channel of the current cell onthe candidate resource b, and then determines resources of the commonsearch space according to corresponding relationship between candidateresource b and resources of the common search space, for example, thecorresponding relationship is between b and the next resource c, andthen the candidate resource c is the resource of the common searchspace. Of course, embodiments of the present invention also can useother similar methods. For example, it also can be indicated that a partof candidate resource c is resources of common search space.

Further, when the actual resources of the common search space of thecurrent cell is determined according to the position information of thecommon control channel detected resources, candidate resources where thecommon control channel detected resources are located can be acquired,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resources; it can be determined, according to correspondingrelationship between candidate resources of common search space andcandidate resources of the common control channel, that the candidateresources of the common search space corresponding to the candidateresources where the common control channel detected resources arelocated are the actual resources of the common search space, where thecandidate resources of the common search space are candidate resourcesin the candidate resource set or candidate resources in a first commonsearch space candidate resource set corresponding to the candidateresource set. According to another embodiment of the present invention,it is assumed that at least one candidate resource included in thecandidate resource set of the common control channel is resources a, b,c and d, and the corresponding candidate resources of the common searchspace are resources a1, b1, c1 and d1.

There can be various manners for corresponding relationship betweencandidate resources of the common control channel and candidateresources of common search space. For example, the candidate resourcesof common search space can have one-to-one correspondence with thecandidate resources of the common control channel, such as a1 to a, b1to b, and the like, or the candidate resources of common search spacecan be a part of the candidate resources of the common control channel,namely, subset (such as a1 is a part of a, b1 is a part of b; or thecandidate resources of common search space only include a1 and b1, anda1 equals to a, b1 equals to b, namely, a proper subset of the candidateresource set), or candidate resources of common search space can be asuperset of the candidate resources of the common control channel,namely, parent set (such as a is a part of a1, b is a part of b1; or,the candidate resources of common search space are a, b, c, d, e, f,which are parent sets of the candidate resource set), or the candidateresources of common search space can be partially overlapped with thecandidate resources of the common control channel (a1 is partiallyoverlapped with a, b1 is partially overlapped with b; or the candidateresources of common search space are a, b, e, f, which are partiallyoverlapped with the above candidate resource set), or the like. It isalso assumed that the UE detects the common control channel of thecurrent cell on the candidate resource b, and then determines resourcesof the common search space according to corresponding relationshipbetween candidate resource b and resources of the common search space,for example, the corresponding relationship is between b and b1, andthen candidate resource b1 is resource of the common search space. Ofcourse, other similar methods are not precluded.

Optionally, after the step 102, further determine, according to commonsearch space indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, actual resources of common search space ofthe current cell, where the actual resources are resources actually usedby the common search space of the current cell. In an embodiment of thepresent invention, it is assumed that at least one candidate resourceincluded in the candidate resource set of the common control channel isresources a, b, c and d. It is assumed that common search spaceindication information of the common control channel for indicating fourresources or a part of the respective four resources is respectivelyexpressed with “00”, “01”, “10” and “11”, when the common search spaceindication information is “00”, the UE can learn that resource of thecommon search space is candidate resource a, or a part of candidateresource a.

Further, when the actual resources of the common search space of thecurrent cell are determined according to the common search spaceindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell, it can be determined that all or a part of the candidateresources in the candidate resources indicated by the common searchspace indication information are actual resources of the common searchspace of the current cell, where the candidate resources indicated bythe common search space indication information are candidate resourcesin the candidate resource set or candidate resources of a first commonsearch space candidate resource set corresponding to the candidateresource set. According to an embodiment of the present invention, it isassumed that at least one candidate resource included in the candidateresource set of the common control channel is resources a, b, c and d,and their corresponding candidate resources are resources a1, b1, c1 andd1. It is assumed that common search space indication information of thecommon control channel for indicating four resources a1, b1, c1 and d1or a part of the respective four resources is respectively expressedwith “00”, “01”, “10” and “11”, when the common search space indicationinformation of the common control channel is “00”, the UE can learn thatresources of the common search space thereof are resource a1, or a partof resource a1. The corresponding relationship between two sets of {a,b, c, d} and {a1, b1, c1, d1} can be the above correspondingrelationship between the candidate resources of the common controlchannel and the candidate resources of common search space, which willnot be described in detail here. In addition, the common search spaceindication information in this embodiment also can be bits or scramblingcodes in the common control channel, or the position information of thecommon control channel detected resources, that is, the indicationinformation is indicated implicitly.

Optionally, after the step 102, further determine, according to theposition information of the common control channel detected resourcesand the common search space indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the resources of the common searchspace of the current cell, where the common control channel detectedresources are candidate resources detecting the common control channelof the current cell.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it is assumed thatat least one candidate resource of the common control channel isresources a, b, c and d, and the UE detects the common control channelof the current cell on the candidate resource b. The resources of thecommon search space can be determined according to the candidateresource b and the common search space indication information, forexample, a candidate resource of the common search space adjacent tocandidate resource b is firstly determined through the candidateresource b, and resources of the common search space are determined inthe candidate resources of the common search space through the commonsearch space indication information. The candidate resources of thecommon search space can be predefined, or have correspondingrelationship with the candidate resources in the candidate resource setof the common control channel, for example, they are one or morecandidate resources in the candidate resource set. The specificcorresponding relationship is similar to that between candidateresources of the common control channel and candidate resources ofcommon search space.

When the resources of the common search space of the current cell aredetermined according to the position information of the common controlchannel detected resources and the common search space indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the current cell,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resources, a second common search space candidate resource setof the current cell can be determined, where the second common searchspace candidate resource set is a subset of the candidate resource setor a subset of the first common search space candidate resource setcorresponding to the candidate resource set; according to the commonsearch space indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell and the second common search space candidateresource set, resources of common search space of the current cell canbe determined.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, it is assumedthat at least one candidate resource of the common control channel isresources a, b, c and d, and each candidate resource has onecorresponding candidate resource set of the common search space. It isassumed that the UE detects the common control channel of the currentcell on the candidate resource b, then it can be determined that thecandidate resource set of the common search space corresponding to thecandidate resource b is the candidate resource set of the common searchspace of the current cell. It is assumed that there are candidateresources a1, b1, c1 and d1 of the common search space in the candidateresource set of the common search space, the set is the second commonsearch space candidate resource set, and also can be a subset of thefirst common search space candidate resource set corresponding to thecandidate resource set. The UE can determine the resource of the commonsearch space in the above set through the common search space indicationinformation of the common control channel, for example, the commonsearch space indication information takes the value of “01”, and it canbe determined that the resource of the common search space is b1. Ofcourse, other similar methods are not precluded. In the above method,one set of the candidate resources of the common search space is firstlydetermined, and the resource of the common search space is thendetermined in the set with the common control channel, so that overheadof bits or scrambling codes in the common control channel can be saved,which facilitates to guarantee performance of the common controlchannel.

Optionally, it can be determined that all or a part of at least onecandidate resource in the candidate resource set is resource of thecommon search space of the current cell through CRC mask of the commoncontrol channel.

Optionally, it can be determined that, all or a part of the candidateresources in the candidate resource set are candidate resources of thecommon search space according to the PCI of the current cell. Onepossible determining method is to take the modulo of the total number ofthe candidate resources in the candidate resource set with the PCIserial number of the current cell, and the obtained remainder is a labelof the candidate resource of the common search space of the currentcell. Of course, the embodiments of the present invention also can useother methods for determining the candidate resource of the commonsearch space according to the PCI. For example, the candidate resourceof the common search space also can be determined according to asubframe label. For example, there are ten subframe labels 1 to 10 intotal, if the UE detects the common control channel on the i-th (i is anatural number less than or equal to 10) subframe, and the specificlabel of the candidate resource of the common search space in thecandidate resource set can be determined according to the i, and thelike. Further, the candidate resources of the common control channel ofthe current cell can be detected in the resources of the common searchspace, or in the candidate resources other than resources of the commonsearch space in the candidate resource set.

Optionally, all or a part of the candidate resources in the candidateresource set are the resources of the common search space, the candidateresource set or a part of the candidate resources in the set can bedetermined by the PCI of the current cell, such as in a manner ofperforming the modulo operation as above. Then, the candidate resourcesof the common control channel of the current cell can be detected in theabove resources of the common search space, or in the resources otherthan the resources of the common search space of the cell in thecandidate resource set. Specific details for detecting the commoncontrol channel and acquiring the actual downlink resource bandwidth areas described in the above embodiments.

Optionally, determine, according to the PCI of the current cell and/orthe position information of the common control channel detectedresources, a first part of resources of the common search space of thecurrent cell, and determine, according to the common search spaceindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell, a second part of resources of the common search space ofthe current cell. The first part of resources and the second part ofresources form resources of common search space of the current cell. Themanners of determining the first part of resources and the second partof resources are similar to those in embodiments of determiningresources of the common search space, which will not be described indetail here. In embodiments of the present invention, the resources ofthe common search space consist of the first part of resources and thesecond part of resources, and the two parts of resources are tworesource sets of the common search space, such as like two resource setsof distributed ePDCCH. Of course, the resources of the common searchspace also can be divided into many parts, and each part corresponds toa manner of determining resources, which is not limited in theembodiments of the present invention.

Further, the blind detection for the common control channel and theblind detection for PDCCH or ePDCCH in the common search space can beseparately configured. The blind detection can be interpreted as, takingthe common control channel detection as an example, the UE needs todetect at least two candidate resources to determine the common controlchannel, while the UE only needs to detect one ascertained resource forthe non-blind detection. The blind detections can be separatelyconfigured, which means that the blind detection of the common controlchannel is not associated with the times of blind detection in thecommon search space, for example, the common search space still keepsthe current 12 times of blind detection, while the times of blinddetection in the common control channel can be freely configured, suchas 6 times. However, considering that the previous PBCH needs no blinddetection, how to simultaneously perform blind detection to the commoncontrol channel and the control channel in the common search space, aswell as the control channel in the UE-specific search space, willincrease the times of blind detection of the UE and complexity of theUE. Therefore, it can be specified that the UE will not simultaneouslyperform blind detection to the common control channel and the controlchannel in other search space, wherein the other search space includesthe common search space and/or the UE-specific search space.

Optionally, paging scheduling information or a paging message can carryresource information of common control channel or common search space,and the paging scheduling information is PDCCH or ePDCCH for schedulingthe paging message. Taking the common control channel as an example, thecurrent mechanism is that, if system information (such as, informationincluded in the common control channel) changes, the UE is notifiedthrough paging, and at this point, the UE may still need to performblind detection to the control channel in the common search space and/orthe UE-specific search space. To avoid increasing blind detection of theUE, i.e., simultaneously performing blind detection to the commoncontrol channel and the control channel in other search space mentionedin the above embodiments, change of configuration information of thecommon control channel, such as change of the resource position, isindicated to the UE through the paging, so that the UE does not need toacquire a new resource position of the common control channel throughthe blind detection, when the position of the common control channelchanges. The UE only needs to perform blind detection to the commoncontrol channel when it initially accesses to the current cell, and theUE at least does not need to perform blind detection to the controlchannel in the UE-specific search space at this point, thereby notincreasing blind detection of the UE.

Optionally, the common control channel also carries at least one of thefollowing information: actual downlink resource bandwidth information ofthe current cell, system radio frame number, antenna port number,antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicatorchannel PHICH configuration information, enhanced physical hybridautomatic repeat request indicator channel ePHICH configurationinformation, scheduling information of a first system information blockSIB1 in a system information block SIB and configuration information ofSIB other than the SIB1.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the common controlchannel can be a resource mapping of the original PBCH, such asoccupying four symbols and a frequency domain width of six PRBs; alsocan be a resource mapping of the ePBCH, such as a resource mapping ofthe ePDCCH, and a specific minimum resource unit can be a PRB, a PRBpair, an enhanced control channel element (including a plurality ofresource element groups) or an enhanced resource element group(including a plurality of resource elements) and the like. Theinformation carried by the PBCH or ePBCH can be at least one of actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, system radio framenumber, antenna port number, antenna port numbers, PHICH configurationinformation, and ePHICH configuration information.

The PBCH or ePBCH also can carry scheduling information for scheduling afirst system information block, such as scheduling SIB1, the SIB1 canconfigure a time window for transmitting other SIBs, such as SIB2through SIB13. The scheduling information specifically can include atleast one of modulation encoding mode, resource allocation informationand so on. In this way, SIB1 can be scheduled directly with PBCH orePBCH, not with the separate ePDCCH or PDCCH, so that the system designcan be simplified.

In order to limit blind decoding times of the control channel, a loadsize (payload size) of the common control channel, i.e., originalinformation bits (including CRC bits) before encoding, equals to a loadsize of a control channel (such as ePDCCH) for scheduling other commoncontrol information (such as random access response, paging, set powercontrol, and etc.) transmitted in the common search space. In addition,for a dedicated control channel, taking a dedicated ePDCCH as anexample, i.e., UE-specific ePDCCH, dedicated ePDCCH of certain formatsalso can be scheduled in the common search space, such as dedicatedePDCCH of format 0 or 1A, however, the ePBCH also needs to carry theoriginal PBCH information, therefore, a load size of the ePBCH will begreater than a load size of the dedicated ePDCCH of the original format0 or 1A, and then the load size of the dedicated ePDCCH of this formatin the common search space will be greater than the load size of thededicated ePDCCH of this format in the dedicated search space of the UE,and the exceeding portion can carry other information, such asconfiguration information of a channel status information referencesignal CSI-RS, and configuration information of a current cell discoverysignal and the like. Or, the load size of the common control channel forscheduling the SIB also can equal to the load size of the controlchannel in the common search space, such as equal to the load size ofthe control channel of format 1A/0/3/3A. However, the common controlchannel will also add scheduling information of for scheduling SIB, onemethod is that the scheduling information borrows a format of thescheduling information of format 1C, which is of severely compressedformat, and has a load size much smaller than that of format 1A, andthen the common control channel not only carries original configurationinformation, but also borrows the format of the scheduling informationof format 1C, so that the load size can be equal to that of the format1A, and the times of blind detection in the common search space will notbe increased.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the commoncontrol channel can be PDCCH or ePDCCH originally scheduling the firstsystem information block, wherein the first system information block maybe SIB1, and the SIB1 can configure a time window for transmitting otherSIBs, such as SIB2 through SIB13. Then assuming that a system will nottransmit PBCH or ePBCH, and therefore, the information carried by thePBCH or ePBCH, such as, at least one of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell, system radio frame number, antenna portnumber, antenna port numbers, PHICH configuration information, andePHICH configuration information, can be carried in SIB1 or other SIB,so that the system design can be simplified, and separate physicalchannel of PBCH or ePBCH can be saved.

Optionally, the bandwidth of the virtual downlink resources determinedby the UE can be greater than or equal to the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell. For example, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell is 10 MHz, and the bandwidth of thevirtual downlink resources can be 10 MHz or 20 MHz.

Optionally, the bandwidth of the virtual downlink resources can begreater than or equal to a predefined downlink resource bandwidth. Thepredefined downlink resource bandwidth is determined by a systemaccessed by a current user. For example, in the current LTE system, thepredefined downlink resource bandwidth is a frequency domain width of 6PRB pairs in the center of the current cell.

Optionally, in the step 102, detect, in a first subframe, a first commoncontrol channel of the current cell on a third candidate resource in theat least one candidate resource, and detect, in a second subframe, asecond common control channel of the current cell on a fourth candidateresource in the at least one candidate resource, wherein the firstsubframe and the second subframe are two subframes with different times,the third candidate resource and the fourth candidate resource havedifferent frequency resource positions, and the first common controlchannel and the second common control channel carry the same originalbit information.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it is assumed thatat least one candidate resource of the common control channel isresources a, b, c and d, the four candidate resources have differentfrequency domain positions and the time domain resources fortransmitting the common control channel are frame 1, frame 2, frame 3and frame 4. Particularly, four candidate resources are included in eachgroup, a plurality of candidate resources in each group are distributedin at least two subframes (four subframes in this example), and thecandidate resources in at least two subframes have different frequencydomain positions, for example, the common control channel of a cell isactually transmitted by the resources (i.e., the common control channeldetected resources) which are four resources on four subframes of afirst set, specifically, subframe 1 is transmitted on a, subframe 2 istransmitted on b, subframe 3 is transmitted on c, subframe 4 istransmitted on d; the common control channel of another cell is actuallytransmitted by the resources (i.e., the common control channel detectedresources) which are four resources on four subframes of a second set,specifically, subframe 1 is transmitted on b, subframe 2 is transmittedon c, subframe 3 is transmitted on d, subframe 4 is transmitted on a;still another cell with a third set of c, d, a, b; yet another cell witha fourth set of d, a, b, c; the above cyclic resource reuse is just anexample, the common control channel carried by the candidate resourcesin each candidate resource set corresponds different transmission copiesof the same cell, for example, if PBCH or ePBCH is transmitted once ineach frame, and four transmissions in the continuous four framescorrespond to the same original information copy, that is, the UE canperform a combination to improve performance. The candidate resources ofthe common control channel for carrying the same original bitinformation in each group occupy different frequency domain positions,so that frequency diversity gain can be obtained, and a detectionperformance of the common control channel can be improved.

Further, the candidate resources corresponding to time domain resourcesof the first common control channel can be overlapped with the candidateresources corresponding to time domain resources of the second commoncontrol channel, where the first common control channel and the secondcommon control channel are the common control channels for carryingdifferent original bit information in the current cell.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, it is assumed thatat least one candidate resource of the common control channel isresources a, b, c and d, and the time domain resources for transmittingthe common control channel are frame 1, frame 2, frame 3 and frame 4.One set of manner for transmitting the common control channel is that,frames 1 and 2 are transmitted on a, frames 3 and 4 are transmitted onb, and another set of manner for transmitting the common control channelis that, frames 1 and 2 are transmitted on b, frames 3 and 4 aretransmitted on c. The partially overlapped configuration is suitable tobe applied when the total resources are limited, and a certainflexibility of interference coordination can be obtained when the totalresources are limited. In addition, the solution that resources arepartially overlapped in the common control channel of multiple cells canmake interference randomization when the total resources are limited.

FIG. 6 is a flow chart of a method for transmitting a common controlchannel according to an embodiment of the present invention. The methodin FIG. 6 is implemented by a base station.

601, select at least one first resource from a candidate resource set ofa cell, where the candidate resource set is a set of candidate resourcesused by the cell when transmitting the common control channel.

602, transmit the common control channel of the cell on the at least onefirst resource.

In embodiments of the present invention, at least one first resource isselected in the candidate resource set of the cell, and the commoncontrol channel is transmitted on the at least one first resource, sothat inter-cell interference of the common control channel can becoordinated, and detection performance of the common control channel canbe improved.

Optionally, before step 601, the method further includes: the candidateresource set is determined in the actual downlink resources of the cell.The base station can determine the candidate resource set of the cell inthe actual downlink resources of the cell according to a predeterminedpolicy. For example, taking a central frequency point of the cell as areference, one candidate resource is determined every other certainfrequency domain resource blocks to both sides, and meanwhile the sizeof each candidate resource and size of an interval are specified. Ofcourse, other manners for determining the candidate resource set alsomay exist, which is not limited herein.

Optionally, before the step 601, determine at least one first candidateresource from the candidate resource set according to the PCI of thecell, where the number of the at least one first candidate resource isless than or equal to the number of the candidate resources in thecandidate resource set. At this point, in step 601, at least one firstresource is selected from the at least one first candidate resource.Optionally, as another embodiment, the total numbers of the candidateresources in the candidate resource set can be taken the modulo with thePCI serial number of the cell, and the obtained remainder is a candidateresource label of the common control channel transmitted by the cell. Ofcourse, other similar determining methods according to the PCI are notexcluded. For example, the first candidate resource also can bedetermined according to a subframe label. If there are 10 subframelabels 1 to 10 in total, then the base station transmits the commoncontrol channel at the i-th (i is a natural number less than or equal to10) subframe, and indicates for the UE the specific label of the firstcandidate resource in the candidate resource set through the i-thsubframe. In embodiments of the present invention, the base stationdetermines at least one first candidate resource from the candidateresource set according to the PCI, and selects at least one firstresource from the at least one first candidate resource, so as to narrowthe range of detecting the common control channel of the cell by the UE.

Optionally, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset. Each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to an actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecell. The candidate resource subset can be determined bypre-configuration or pre-negotiation, or the candidate resource subsetcan be determined by partitioning subset of the candidate resource setthrough the PCI, and embodiments of the present invention are notlimited thereto.

Optionally, as another embodiment, the current cell can have two actualdownlink resource bandwidths, that is, a first actual downlink resourcebandwidth and a second actual downlink resource bandwidth.Correspondingly, the candidate resource set includes a first candidateresource subset and a second candidate resource subset, each of whichincludes at least one candidate resource, and the candidate resource ofthe first candidate resource subset corresponds to the first actualdownlink resource bandwidth, and the candidate resource of the secondcandidate resource subset corresponds to the second actual downlinkresource bandwidth. When the bandwidth is the first actual downlinkresource bandwidth, the common control channel of the cell istransmitted on the candidate resources in the first candidate resourcesubset; when the bandwidth of the cell is the second actual downlinkresource bandwidth, the common control channel is transmitted on thecandidate resources in the second candidate resource subset.

Further, a resource unit of the candidate resource in the candidateresource set has a maximum frequency domain width less than or equal tohalf of the actual downlink resource bandwidth corresponding to thecandidate resource, and the resource unit can be a PRB, a PRB pair, acontrol channel element or a resource element group of the candidateresource consisting of the candidate resource. For example, if onecandidate resource occupies two control channel elements, then theresource unit can be a control channel element.

Further, one of the candidate resources in the candidate resource subsetis a frequency domain shift copy of the other candidate resources in thecandidate resource subset. FIG. 3 is a schematic diagram of candidateresources of cells with the same PCI according to an embodiment of thepresent invention. FIGS. 3 (a), (b) and (c) are three sets of differentsolutions for candidate resources, the bottom left corner of each set isa schematic diagram of candidate resources of cell 1, the middle on thetop is a schematic diagram of candidate resources of cell 0, and thebottom right corner is a schematic diagram of candidate resources ofcell 2. For purposes of explanation, it is assumed that one candidateresource consists of two PRB pairs, that is, the resource unitcorresponds to the PRB pair, but the manner of forming the candidateresources is not limited in the embodiments of the present invention. Asshown in FIG. 3, it is assumed that three actual downlink resourcebandwidths are 3 MHz, 5 MHz and 10 MHz respectively, and other cases aresimilar thereto. It is assumed that the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of cell 0 is 3 MHz, cell 1 and cell 2 which are adjacent tocell 0 to the left and right both are 10 MHz respectively, and the threecells have the same PCI, that is, it is assumed that the three cells aredeployed in one geographical position.

FIG. 3 shows the candidate resource corresponding to each actualdownlink resource bandwidth, and it can be seen from FIG. 3( a) that,the candidate resources corresponding to an actual bandwidth of 10 MHzwithin the virtual downlink bandwidth of cell 0 are overlapped with thecandidate resources, which actually transmit the common control channel,of cell 1 and cell 2 (a candidate resource position pointed to by “Z2”in FIG. 3( a)), which may cause a problem of fuzzy bandwidth detection.Specifically, a UE trying to detect the common control channel of cell 0may detect a common control channel of 10 MHz on the candidate resourcesof cell 1 or cell 2, which may cause the UE to mistake the actualbandwidth of cell 0 for 10 MHz, and cause fuzzy bandwidth detection. Theproblem of fuzzy bandwidth detection at the UE side can be circumventedby a method for allocating candidate resources in FIG. 3( b) and FIG. 3(c).

As shown in FIG. 3( b), the frequency domain width between two PRB pairsin each candidate resource is half of the actual downlink resourcebandwidth corresponding to the candidate resource, and a plurality ofcandidate resources corresponding to the actual downlink resourcebandwidth are frequency domain shift copies of each other. FIG. 3( c)shows a case after shift of FIG. 3( b). It can be seen that, neither acase of candidate resource overlapping shown in FIG. 3( a) nor theproblem of fuzzy bandwidth detection at the UE side will occur.

Optionally, before step 601, the method further includes: determining,according to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell, a firstcandidate resource subset corresponding to the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell in the candidate resource set. At this point, instep 601, at least one first resource is selected from the firstcandidate resource subset. In another embodiment, it is assumed that thecurrent cell can select to use two actual downlink resource bandwidths,that is, a first actual downlink resource bandwidth and a second actualdownlink resource bandwidth, and it is also assumed that a firstcandidate resource subset in the candidate resource set corresponds tothe first actual downlink resource bandwidth, and a second candidateresource subset in the candidate resource set corresponds to the secondactual downlink resource bandwidth. When the downlink resource bandwidthof the cell is a first actual downlink resource bandwidth, then it canbe determined that the candidate resources in the first candidateresource subset are candidate resources transmitting the common controlchannel of the cell, and at least one first resource is selected fromthe first candidate resource subset. When the downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell is a second actual downlink resource bandwidth,then it can be determined that the candidate resources in the secondcandidate resource subset are candidate resources transmitting thecommon control channel of the cell, and at least one first resource isselected from the second candidate resource subset. Of course, thecandidate resource set also can possess only one candidate resourcesubset, or 3 or more candidate resource subsets, and the candidateresource subset corresponds to one actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe cell.

Optionally, in step 601, it can be determined the candidate resourcecorresponding to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell inthe candidate resource set is the first resource according to the actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the cell. In another embodiment, it isassumed that the base station side supports six actual downlink resourcebandwidths ranked from small to large, B1, B2 . . . B6, as shown in FIG.4. If the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell is B1, then thebase station can transmit a common control channel on a certaincandidate resource within a range of B1; if the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell is B2, then the base station can transmit a commoncontrol channel on a certain candidate resource within a range of B2other than B1; and so forth, if the actual downlink resource bandwidthsof the cell are B3, B4, B5 and B6, then the base station can transmit acommon control channel within a range of B2-B3, B3-B4, B4-B5 and B5-B6.According to the method in embodiments of the present invention, thebase station can support N actual downlink resource bandwidths, N is apositive integer, and is not limited to the six types illustrated above.According to the resource position information of the first candidateresource which detects the common control channel, it is not necessaryfor the base station to explicitly indicate the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell within the common control channel, so thatoverhead can be saved.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell also carries downlinkresource bandwidth indication information for indicating an actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the cell. In another embodiment, the basestation can carry the downlink resource bandwidth indication informationin the common control channel transmitted by the cell, for instance, theinformation bits of “001”, “100” and “110” can respectively indicatethat the actual downlink resource bandwidths of the cell are 5 MHz, 10MHz and 20 MHz. The actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell canbe explicitly determined according to downlink resource bandwidthindication information carried by the common control channel. Or, thebase station can indicate the actual downlink resource bandwidth withCRC mask carried by the ePBCH, or with a combination of bit and mask, orthe like.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell further carriesresource position indication information for indicating to transmitpositional relationship between the candidate resources which transmitsthe common control channel of the cell and the cell. The problem offuzzy bandwidth detection at the UE side can be solved by combiningposition information of the resource which transmits the common controlchannel and resource position indication information carried by thecommon control channel.

As shown in FIG. 5, in another embodiment, 307 and 308 are two differentcells, a frequency resource bandwidth of cell 307 is 5 MHz, and afrequency resource bandwidth of cell 308 is 10 MHz. 309 is a virtualresource bandwidth of cell 307 detected by the UE side, 301-305 arecandidate resources within the virtual resource 309. The candidateresources 301-303 indicate a frequency resource bandwidth of the cellwhere they are located is 5 MHz, and candidate resources 304 and 305indicate a frequency resource bandwidth of the cell where they arelocated is 10 MHz. If the base station transmits a common controlchannel on the candidate resource 304 of cell 308, and then the UE maymistake the detected common control channel for the common controlchannel of cell 307. If the actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecell is determined only according to resource position information ofthe candidate resource of the common control channel, then the UE maymistake the resource shown by 306 for the actual downlink resource ofcell 307.

In order to solve the problem of fuzzy bandwidth detection, resourceposition indication information can be added in the common controlchannel, and the resource position indication information can beexpressed by bits, scrambling codes or other information of the commoncontrol channel, which are not limited herein. The resource positionindication information indicates positional relationship between thecurrently detected common control channel and the cell which thedetected common control channel corresponds to or belongs to, forexample, it indicates a position of the detected common control channelwith respect to a central frequency point of the cell which the detectedcommon control channel belongs to, for example, the detected commoncontrol channel is at a low frequency side or a high frequency side ofthe central frequency point, that is, the candidate resource 304 in FIG.5 is located on the left of the cell 308 which the candidate resource304 belongs to (i.e., the low frequency side, assuming that thefrequency gradually increases from left to right), then the UE canidentify the detected candidate resource 304 does not belong to cell 1,because the candidate resource 304 is on the right of the centralfrequency point of cell 307, and such post-checking or post-verificationfunction can solve the problem of fuzzy bandwidth.

Of course, the above position information also can be other similarinformation, such as for indicating a positional relationship betweenthe detected candidate resources and a boundary of the cell which thedetected candidate resources belong to, and so on, which are not limitedherein, as long as the problem of fuzzy bandwidth can be solved.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell can carry downlinkresource bandwidth indication information and resource positionindication information at the same time. The downlink resource bandwidthindication information indicates actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe cell, and the resource position indication information indicates apositional relationship between the candidate resources, which transmitthe common control channel of the cell, and the cell. The problem offuzzy bandwidth detection at the UE side can be solved by combiningresource position indication information carried by the common controlchannel and downlink resource bandwidth indication information.

Another embodiment of the present invention is as shown in FIGS. 5, 307and 308 are two different cells, a frequency resource bandwidth of cell307 is 5 MHz, and a frequency resource bandwidth of cell 308 is 10 MHz.309 is a virtual resource bandwidth of cell 307 detected by the UE side,301-305 are candidate resources within the virtual resource 309. Thedownlink resource bandwidth indication information of the common controlchannel on 301-303 indicates that a frequency resource bandwidth of thecell where they are located is 5 MHz, and the downlink resourcebandwidth indication information of the common control channel on 304and 305 indicates that a frequency resource bandwidth of the cell wherethey are located is 10 MHz. If the base station transmits a commoncontrol channel on the candidate resource 304 of cell 308, and then theUE may mistake the detected common control channel for the commoncontrol channel of cell 307. If the actual downlink resource bandwidthof the cell is determined only according to downlink resource bandwidthindication information of the detected common control channel, then theUE may mistake the resource shown by 306 for the actual downlinkresource of cell 307. In order to solve the problem of fuzzy bandwidthdetection at the UE side, the common control channel can add resourceposition indication information for indicating a positional relationshipbetween the candidate resource which transmits the common controlchannel of the cell and the cell.

Optionally, the position information of the at least one first resourceis further used to indicate actual resources of common search space ofthe cell for a UE. In another embodiment, it is assumed that at leastone candidate resource included in the candidate resource set of thecommon control channel is resources a, b, c and d. It is assumed thatthe base station selects to transmit the common control channel on thecandidate resource b, and then the actual resources of common searchspace can be determined according to relationship between the candidateresource b and the candidate resource of the common search space. Forexample, the corresponding relationship is between b and the nextresource c, and then the candidate resource c is the actual resource ofthe common search space, of course, other similar methods are notexcluded. Further, the base station can indicate for the UE, accordingto corresponding relationship between candidate resources of commonsearch space of the cell and candidate resources of the common controlchannel of the cell, that candidate resource of common search spacecorresponding to the position information of the at least one firstresource is the actual resource of common search space of the cell,where, the candidate resources of the common search space are candidateresources in the candidate resource set or candidate resources in thecandidate resource set of the common search space corresponding to thecandidate resource set.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell further carries firstcommon search space indication information for indicating actualresources of the common search space of the cell. In another embodiment,it is assumed that at least one candidate resource included in thecandidate resource set of the common control channel is resources a, b,c and d. It is assumed that common search space indication informationof the common control channel for indicating four resources or a part ofthe respective four resources is respectively expressed with “00”, “01”,“10” and “11”, the base station determines that resources of the commonsearch space are candidate resource a, or a part of candidate resourcea, and takes “00” as the common search space indication informationcarried by the common control channel.

Optionally, the actual resources indicated by the first common searchspace indication information are all or a part of the candidateresources in the candidate resource set; or the actual resourcesindicated by the first common search space indication information areall or a part of the candidate resources in the first common searchspace candidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resourceset.

In another embodiment of the present invention, it is assumed that atleast one candidate resource included in the candidate resource set ofthe common control channel is resources a, b, c and d, and theircorresponding candidate resources are resources a1, b1, c1 and d1. It isassumed that common search space indication information of the commoncontrol channel for indicating four resources a1, b1, c1 and d1 or apart of the respective four resources is respectively expressed with“00”, “01”, “10” and “11”, when the common search space indicationinformation of the common control channel is “00”, the base station canindicates the UE that resource of the common search space of the cell isresource a1, or a part of resource a1.

There can be various manners for corresponding relationship betweencandidate resources of the common control channel and candidateresources of common search space. For example, the candidate resourcesof common search space can have one-to-one correspondence with thecandidate resources of the common control channel, such as a1 to a, b1to b, and the like, or the candidate resources of common search spacecan be a part of the candidate resources of the common control channel,namely, subset (such as a1 is a part of a, b1 is a part of b; or thecandidate resources of common search space only include a1 and b1, anda1 equals to a, b1 equals to b, namely, a proper subset of the candidateresource set), or candidate resources of common search space can be asuperset of the candidate resources of the common control channel,namely, parent set (such as a is a part of a1, b is a part of b1; or,the candidate resources of common search space are a, b, c, d, e, f,which are parent sets of the candidate resource set), or the candidateresources of common search space can be partially overlapped with thecandidate resources of the common control channel (a1 is partiallyoverlapped with a, b1 is partially overlapped with b; or the candidateresources of common search space are a, b, e, f, which are partiallyoverlapped with the above candidate resource set), or the like. It isalso assumed that the UE detects the common control channel of thecurrent cell on the candidate resource b, and then determines resourcesof the common search space according to corresponding relationshipbetween candidate resource b and resources of the common search space,for example, the corresponding relationship is between b and b1, andthen candidate resource b1 is resource of the common search space. Ofcourse, other similar methods are not precluded.

Optionally, the position information of the at least one first resourceis further used to indicate candidate resources of common search spaceof the cell for a UE. The common control channel of the cell furthercarries second common search space indication information for indicatinga position of the actual resources of the common search space of thecell in the candidate resources of common search space.

In another embodiment, it is assumed that at least one candidateresource of the common control channel is resources a, b, c and d, andthe base station transmits the common control channel of the cell on thecandidate resource b, the resources of the common search space can beindicated to the UE according to the candidate resource b and the commonsearch space indication information, for example, a candidate resource eof the common search space adjacent to candidate resource b is firstlyindicated to the UE through the candidate resource b, and the actualresource of the common search space, such as a resource unit of thecandidate resource e of the common search space, is then indicated tothe UE in the candidate resource of the common search space through thecommon search space indication information. The candidate resource ofthe common search space can be predefined, or have correspondingrelationship with the candidate resource in the candidate resource setof the common control channel, such as one or more candidate resourcesin the candidate resource set.

Or, optionally, the position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate a second common search spacecandidate resource set of the common search space of the cell for a UE,and the second common search space candidate resource set is a subset ofthe candidate resource set or a subset of the first common search spacecandidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resource set; thecommon control channel of the cell further carries third common searchspace indication information for indicating a position of the actualresources of the common search space of the cell in the second commonsearch space candidate resource set.

In another embodiment, it is assumed that the candidate resource set ofthe common search space is the first common search space candidateresource set corresponding to candidate resource set of the commoncontrol channel, and it is also assumed that at least one candidateresource of the common control channel is resources a, b, c and d, andeach candidate resource has one corresponding second common search spacecandidate resource set, which respectively is {a1,a2,a3,a4},{b1,b2,b3,b4}, {c1,c2,c3,c4} and {d1,d2,d3,d4}, and the base stationtransmits the common control channel of the cell on the candidateresource b, and then it can be indicated to the UE that the candidateresource b corresponds to the second common search space candidateresource set {b1,b2,b3,b4}.

Further, the base station can carry common search space indicationinformation, for indicating a position of resources of the common searchspace in the first common search space candidate resource set, on thecommon control channel, for example, the common search space indicationinformation takes the value of “01”, and it can be determined that theresource of the common search space is b1. Of course, other similarmethods are not precluded. In the above method, one first common searchspace candidate resource set of the candidate resources of the commonsearch space is firstly indicated to the UE, and the resource of thecommon search space is then indicated in the first common search spacecandidate resource set with the common control channel, so that overheadof bits or scrambling codes in the common control channel can be saved,which facilitates to guarantee performance of the common controlchannel.

Optionally, the position information of the at least one first resourceis further used to indicate a first part of resources of common searchspace of the cell for a UE; the common control channel of the currentcell further carries fourth common search space indication informationfor indicating a second part of resources of the common search space ofthe current cell; and the actual resources of common search space of thecurrent cell include the first part of resources and the second part ofresources.

In another embodiment, it is assumed that the common control channel atleast includes resources a, b, c and d, and the corresponding candidateresources of the common search space at least includes candidateresources a1, b1, c1 and d1. It is assumed that the candidate resourcesof the common search space at least also includes candidate resourcesa2, b2, c2 and d2, the corresponding common search space indicationinformation of the common control channel is respectively expressed with“00”, “01”, “10” and “11”. It is assumed that the base station transmitthe common control channel of the cell on the candidate resource a, whenthe common search space indication information carried in the commoncontrol channel of the cell is “00”, it is indicated that resources ofthe common search space of the cell are a1 and a2.

Optionally, the base station can determine a rule for selectingcandidate resources of common search space of the cell from thecandidate resource set according to the PCI of the cell, so that the UEcan select candidate resources of common search space of the cellaccording to the same rule. Optionally, as another embodiment, the totalnumbers of the candidate resources in the candidate resource set can betaken the modulo with the PCI serial number of the cell, and theobtained remainder is a candidate resource label of the common searchspace of the cell. Of course, other similar determining methodsaccording to the PCI are not excluded. For example, the candidateresource of the common search space also can be determined according toa subframe label. If there are 10 subframe labels 1 to 10 in total, thenthe base station transmits the common control channel at the i-th (i isa natural number less than or equal to 10) subframe, and indicates forthe UE the specific label of the candidate resource of the common searchspace in the candidate resource set through the i-th subframe.

Optionally, if the candidate resources of the common search space of thecell are a part of candidate resources in the candidate resources set,then the base station can select at least one first resource from thecandidate resources other than resources of the common search space ofthe cell in the candidate resource set so as to transmit the commoncontrol channel of the cell.

Optionally, the common control channel of the current cell also cancarry at least one of the following information: actual downlinkresource bandwidth information of the cell, system radio frame number,antenna port number, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automaticrepeat request indicator channel PHICH configuration information,enhanced physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channelePHICH configuration information, scheduling information of a firstsystem information block SIB1 in a system information block SIB andconfiguration information of SIB other than the SIB1.

According to an embodiment of the present invention, the common controlchannel can be a resource mapping of the original PBCH, such asoccupying four symbols and a frequency domain width of six PRBs; alsocan be a resource mapping of the ePBCH, such as a resource mapping ofthe ePDCCH, and a specific minimum resource unit can be a PRB, a PRBpair, an enhanced control channel element (including a plurality ofresource element groups) or an enhanced resource element group(including a plurality of resource elements) and the like. Theinformation carried by the PBCH or ePBCH can be at least one of actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the cell, system radio frame number,antenna port number, antenna port numbers, PHICH configurationinformation, and ePHICH configuration information.

The PBCH or ePBCH also can carry scheduling information for scheduling afirst system information block, such as scheduling SIB1, the SIB1 canconfigure a time window for transmitting other SIBs, such as SIB2through SIB13. The scheduling information specifically can include atleast one of modulation encoding mode, resource allocation informationand so on. In this way, SIB1 can be scheduled directly with PBCH orePBCH, not with the separate ePDCCH or PDCCH, so that the system designcan be simplified.

In order to limit blind decoding times of the control channel, a loadsize (payload size) of the common control channel, i.e., originalinformation bits (including CRC bits) before encoding, equals to a loadsize of a control channel (such as ePDCCH) for scheduling other commoncontrol information (such as random access response, paging, set powercontrol, and etc.) transmitted in the common search space. In addition,for a dedicated control channel, taking a dedicated ePDCCH as anexample, i.e., UE-specific ePDCCH, dedicated ePDCCH of certain formatsalso can be scheduled in the common search space, such as dedicatedePDCCH of format 0 or 1A, however, the ePBCH also needs to carry theoriginal PBCH information, therefore, a load size of the ePBCH will begreater than a load size of the dedicated ePDCCH of the original format0 or 1A, and then the load size of the dedicated ePDCCH of this formatin the common search space will be greater than the load size of thededicated ePDCCH of this format in the dedicated search space of the UE,and the exceeding portion can carry other information, such asconfiguration information of a channel status information referencesignal CSI-RS, and configuration information of a cell discovery signaland the like. Or, the load size of the common control channel forscheduling the SIB also can equal to the load size of the controlchannel in the common search space, such as equal to the load size ofthe control channel of format 1A/0/3/3A. However, the common controlchannel will also add scheduling information of for scheduling SIB, onemethod is that the scheduling information borrows a format of thescheduling information of format 1C, which is of severely compressedformat, and has a load size much smaller than that of format 1A, andthen the common control channel not only carries original configurationinformation, but also borrows the format of the scheduling informationof format 1C, so that the load size can be equal to that of the format1A, and the times of blind detection in the common search space will notbe increased.

According to another embodiment of the present invention, the commoncontrol channel can be PDCCH or ePDCCH originally scheduling the firstsystem information block, wherein the first system information block maybe SIB1, and the SIB1 can configure a time window for transmitting otherSIBs, such as SIB2 through SIB13. Then assuming that a system will nottransmit PBCH or ePBCH, and therefore, the information carried by thePBCH or ePBCH, such as, at least one of actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell, system radio frame number, antenna port number,antenna port numbers, PHICH configuration information, and ePHICHconfiguration information, can be carried in SIB1 or other SIB, so thatthe system design can be simplified, and separate physical channel ofPBCH or ePBCH can be saved.

Optionally, the transmitting the common control channel of the cell onthe at least one first resource includes: transmitting, in a firstsubframe, a first common control channel of the cell on a thirdcandidate resource in the at least one first resource, and transmitting,in a second subframe, a second common control channel of the cell on afourth candidate resource in the at least one first resource, whereinthe first subframe and the second subframe are two subframes withdifferent times, the third candidate resource and the fourth candidateresource have different frequency resource positions, and the firstcommon control channel and the second common control channel carry thesame original bit information.

In another embodiment, it is assumed that at least one candidateresource of the common control channel is resources a, b, c and d, thefour candidate resources have different frequency domain positions andthe time domain resources for transmitting the common control channelare frame 1, frame 2, frame 3 and frame 4. Particularly, four candidateresources are included in each group, a plurality of candidate resourcesin each group are distributed in at least two subframes (four subframesin this example), and the candidate resources in at least two subframeshave different frequency domain positions, for example, the commoncontrol channel of a cell is actually transmitted by the resources(i.e., the common control channel detected resources) which are fourresources on four subframes of a first set, specifically, subframe 1 istransmitted on a, subframe 2 is transmitted on b, subframe 3 istransmitted on c, subframe 4 is transmitted on d; the common controlchannel of another cell is actually transmitted by the resources (i.e.,the common control channel detected resources) which are four resourceson four subframes of a second set, specifically, subframe 1 istransmitted on b, subframe 2 is transmitted on c, subframe 3 istransmitted on d, subframe 4 is transmitted on a; still another cellwith a third set of c, d, a, b; yet another cell with a fourth set of d,a, b, c; the above cyclic resource reuse is just an example, the commoncontrol channel carried by the candidate resources in each candidateresource set corresponds different transmission copies of the same cell,for example, if PBCH or ePBCH is transmitted once in each frame, andfour transmissions in the continuous four frames correspond to the sameoriginal information copy, that is, the UE can perform a combination toimprove performance. The candidate resources of the common controlchannel for carrying the same copy of information in each group occupydifferent frequency domain positions, so that frequency diversity gaincan be obtained, and a detection performance of the common controlchannel can be improved.

Further, the candidate resources corresponding to time domain resourcesof the first common control channel can be overlapped with the candidateresources corresponding to time domain resources of the second commoncontrol channel, where the first common control channel and the secondcommon control channel are the common control channels for carryingdifferent original bit information in the current cell.

In another embodiment, it is assumed that at least one candidateresource of the common control channel is resources a, b, c and d, andthe time domain resources for transmitting the common control channelare frame 1, frame 2, frame 3 and frame 4. One set of manner fortransmitting the common control channel is that, frames 1 and 2 aretransmitted on a, frames 3 and 4 are transmitted on b, and another setof manner for transmitting the common control channel is that, frames 1and 2 are transmitted on b, frames 3 and 4 are transmitted on c. Thepartially overlapped configuration can be applied when the totalresources are limited, that is, a certain flexibility of interferencecoordination can be obtained when the total resources are limited. Inaddition, the solution that resources are partially overlapped in thecommon control channel of multiple cells can make interferencerandomization when the total resources are limited.

FIG. 7 is a schematic block diagram of a user equipment 700 according toan embodiment of the present invention. The user equipment 700 caninclude a determination unit 701 and a detection unit 702.

The determination unit 701 can determine a candidate resource set withinvirtual downlink resources of a current cell, wherein the virtualdownlink resources are configured to detect a common control channel ofthe current cell, and the candidate resource set includes at least onecandidate resource of the common control channel of the current cell.

The detection unit 702 can perform a detect on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire the commoncontrol channel of the current cell.

In embodiments of the present invention, the user equipment 700 acquiresthe candidate resource set within the virtual downlink resources of thecell, and detects within the candidate resource set so as to acquire thecommon control channel of the cell, so that inter-cell interference ofthe common control channel can be coordinated, and a detectionperformance of the common control channel can be improved.

Optionally, the user equipment 700 further includes a first acquisitionunit 703. The first acquisition unit 703 can acquire frequency domainposition information of the current cell, where the frequency domainposition information includes a central frequency point position of thecurrent cell and/or a frequency domain central resource position of thecurrent cell. The determination unit 702 further can determine thevirtual downlink resources according to the frequency domain positioninformation.

Optionally, the user equipment 700 further includes a second acquisitionunit 704. The second acquisition unit 704 can acquire a physical cellidentifier PCI of the current cell.

Optionally, the detection unit 702 further specifically can perform thedetection on at least one candidate resource in the candidate resourceset according to the PCI, so as to acquire the common control channel ofthe current cell.

Optionally, the determination unit 701 specifically can determine atleast one first candidate resource from the candidate resource setaccording to the PCI, where the number of the at least one firstcandidate resource is less than or equal to the number of the candidateresources in the candidate resource set. The detection unit 702specifically can perform the detection on at least one first candidateresource, so as to acquire the common control channel of the currentcell.

Optionally, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to an actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell.

Further, a resource unit of the candidate resources in the candidateresource subset has a maximum frequency domain width less than or equalto half of the actual downlink resource bandwidth corresponding to thecandidate resource subset, and the resource unit is a physical blockPRB, a PRB pair, a control channel element or a resource element group,which consist of the candidate resource in the candidate resourcesubset.

Further, one of the candidate resources in the candidate resource subsetis a frequency domain shift copy of the other candidate resource in thecandidate resource subset.

Further, the determination unit 701 further can determine at least onefirst candidate resource respectively in each candidate resource subsetin the candidate resource set according to the PCI. The detection unit702 specifically can perform the detection on at least one firstcandidate resource, so as to acquire the common control channel of thecurrent cell.

Optionally, the determination unit 701 further can determine, accordingto position information of common control channel detected resources,the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, where thecommon control channel detected resources are candidate resourcesdetecting the common control channel of the current cell; or thedetermination unit 701 further can determine, according to downlinkresource bandwidth indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, the actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe current cell.

Further, the determination unit 701 specifically can determine,according to the common control channel detected resources of the cellto be determined, a first downlink resource bandwidth. If positionalrelationship between the common control channel detected resources ofthe cell to be determined and the current cell conforms to thepositional relationship indicated by resource position indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the cell to bedetermined, then the determination unit 701 is further specificallyconfigured to determine that the first downlink resource bandwidth is anactual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, where theresource position indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the cell to be determined indicates the positionalrelationship between the common control channel detected resources ofthe cell to be determined and the cell to be determined.

Or, further, the determination unit 701 further specifically candetermine, according to downlink resource bandwidth indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the cell to bedetermined, a second downlink resource bandwidth. If the common controlchannel detected resources of the cell to be determined are within afrequency resource range of undetermined downlink resources of thecurrent cell, then the determination unit 701 is further specificallyconfigured to determine that the second downlink resource bandwidth isan actual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, where theundetermined downlink resources of the current cell are downlinkresources of a cell when the second downlink resource bandwidth is abandwidth of the current cell.

Optionally, the determination unit 701 is further specificallyconfigured to determine, according to position information of commoncontrol channel detected resources, actual resources of common searchspace of the current cell, where the common control channel detectedresources are candidate resources detecting the common control channelof the current cell, and the actual resources are resources actuallyused by the common search space of the current cell.

The determination unit 701 further can acquire, according to theposition information of the common control channel detected resources,candidate resources where the common control channel detected resourcesare located, and determine, according to corresponding relationshipbetween candidate resources of common search space and candidateresources of the common control channel, that the candidate resources ofthe common search space corresponding to the candidate resources wherethe common control channel detected resources are located are the actualresources of the common search space, wherein the candidate resources ofthe common search space are candidate resources in the candidateresource set or candidate resources in a first common search spacecandidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resource set.

Optionally, the determination unit 701 further can determine, accordingto the common search space indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, actual resources of common searchspace of the current cell, wherein the actual resources are resourcesactually used by the common search space of the current cell.

Further, the determination unit 701 further specifically can determinethat all or a part of the candidate resources in the candidate resourcesindicated by the common search space indication information are actualresources of the common search space of the current cell, wherein thecandidate resources indicated by the common search space indicationinformation are candidate resources in the candidate resource set orcandidate resources in a first common search space candidate resourceset corresponding to the candidate resource set.

Or, further, the determination unit 701 specifically can determine,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resources and the common search space indication informationcarried by the common control channel of the current cell, the actualresources of the common search space of the current cell, wherein thecommon control channel detected resources are candidate resourcesdetecting the common control channel of the current cell.

Further, the determination unit 701 further specifically can determine,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resources, a second common search space candidate resource setof the current cell, and determine, according to the common search spaceindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell and the second common search space candidate resource set,actual resources of common search space of the current cell, wherein thesecond common search space candidate resource set is a subset of thecandidate resource set or a subset of the first common search spacecandidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resource set.

Optionally, the determination unit 701 further can determine, accordingto the PCI, that all or a part of the candidate resources in thecandidate resource set are candidate resources of the common searchspace of the current cell.

Further, if the candidate resources of the common search space of thecurrent cell are a part of candidate resources in the candidate resourceset, then the determination unit 701 further can perform the detectionon the candidate resources other than candidate resources of the commonsearch space of the current cell in the candidate resource set, so as toacquire the common control channel of the current cell.

Optionally, the determination unit 701 specifically can determine,according to the PCI of the current cell and/or the position informationof the common control channel detected resources, a first part ofresources of the common search space of the current cell, and determine,according to common search space indication information carried by thecommon control channel of the current cell, a second part of resourcesof the common search space of the current cell; wherein the actualresources of common search space of the current cell include the firstpart of resources and the second part of resources.

Optionally, the width of the virtual downlink resources is greater thanor equal to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell;and/or the width of the virtual downlink resources is greater than orequal to a predefined downlink resource bandwidth.

Optionally, the common control channel also can carry at least one ofthe following information: actual downlink resource bandwidthinformation of the current cell, system radio frame number, antenna portnumber, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automatic repeat requestindicator channel PHICH configuration information, enhanced physicalhybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel ePHICH configurationinformation, scheduling information of a first system information blockSIB1 in a system information block SIB and configuration information ofSIB other than the SIB1.

Optionally, the detection unit 702 is further specifically configured todetect, in a first subframe, a first common control channel of thecurrent cell on a third candidate resource in the at least one candidateresource, and detect, in a second subframe, a second common controlchannel of the current cell on a fourth candidate resource in the atleast one candidate resource, wherein the first subframe and the secondsubframe are two subframes with different times, the third candidateresource and the fourth candidate resource have different frequencyresource positions, and the first common control channel and the secondcommon control channel carry the same original bit information.

The user equipment 700 also can implement methods for detecting a commoncontrol channel of a current cell by the UE as shown in FIG. 1 to FIG.5, and possesses functions of the UE in the above embodiments, whichwill not be described in detail here.

FIG. 8 is a schematic block diagram of a base station 800 according toan embodiment of the present invention. The base station 800 can includea selection unit 801 and a transmission unit 802.

The selection unit 801 can select at least one first resource from acandidate resource set of a cell.

The transmission unit 802 can transmit a common control channel of thecell on the at least one first resource.

In embodiments of the present invention, the base station 800 determinesthe candidate resource set of the cell, and transmits the common controlchannel within the candidate resource set, so that inter-cellinterference of the common control channel can be coordinated, and adetection performance of the common control channel can be improved.

Optionally, the base station 800 further can include a determinationunit 803. The determination unit 803 can determine the candidateresource set in the actual downlink resources of the cell.

Further, the determination unit 803 is further configured to determineat least one first candidate resource from the candidate resource setaccording to a physical cell identifier PCI of the cell, where thenumber of the at least one first candidate resource is less than orequal to the number of the candidate resources in the candidate resourceset; the selection unit 801 is further specifically configured to selectthe at least one first resource from the at least one first candidateresource.

Or, further, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to an actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecell.

Further, a resource unit of the candidate resource in the candidateresource set has a maximum frequency domain width less than or equal tohalf of the actual downlink resource bandwidth corresponding to thecandidate resources in the candidate resource set, and the resource unitis a physical block PRB, a PRB pair, a control channel element or aresource element group, which consist of the candidate resource.

Further, one of the candidate resources in the candidate resource subsetis a frequency domain shift copy of the other candidate resource in thecandidate resource subset.

Further, the determination unit 803 is further configured to determine,according to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell, a firstcandidate resource subset corresponding to the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell in the candidate resource set; the selection unit801 is specifically configured to select at least one first resourcefrom the first candidate resource subset.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell further carriesdownlink resource bandwidth indication information for indicating actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the cell.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell further carriesresource position indication information for indicating a positionalrelationship between the candidate resource which transmits the commoncontrol channel of the cell and the cell.

Optionally, the position information of the at least one first resourceis further used to indicate actual resources of common search space ofthe cell for a UE.

Further, the common control channel of the cell further carries firstcommon search space indication information for indicating actualresources of the common search space of the cell.

Further, the actual resources indicated by the first common search spaceindication information are all or a part of the candidate resources inthe candidate resource set; or all or a part of the candidate resourcesin the first common search space candidate resource set corresponding tothe candidate resource set.

Or, optionally, the position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate a second common search spacecandidate resource set of the common search space of the cell for a UE,and the second common search space candidate resource set is a subset ofthe candidate resource set or a subset of the first common search spacecandidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resource set; thecommon control channel of the cell further carries third common searchspace indication information for indicating a position of the actualresources of the common search space of the cell in the second commonsearch space candidate resource set.

Or, optionally, the position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate a first part of resources of commonsearch space of the cell for a UE; the common control channel of thecurrent cell further carries fourth common search space indicationinformation for indicating a second part of resources of the commonsearch space of the current cell; and the actual resources of commonsearch space of the current cell include the first part of resources andthe second part of resources.

Optionally, if the candidate resources of the common search space of thecell are a part of candidate resources in the candidate resource set,then the selection unit 801 is specifically configured to select atleast one first resource from the candidate resources other thanresources of the common search space of the cell in the candidateresource set.

Optionally, the common control channel can carry at least one of thefollowing information: actual downlink resource bandwidth information ofthe cell, system radio frame number, antenna port number, antenna portnumbers, physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channelPHICH configuration information, enhanced physical hybrid automaticrepeat request indicator channel ePHICH configuration information,scheduling information of a first system information block SIB1 in asystem information block SIB and configuration information of SIB otherthan the SIB1.

Optionally, the selection unit 802 is specifically configured totransmit, in a first subframe, a first common control channel of thecell on a third candidate resource in the at least one first resource,and transmit, in a second subframe a second common control channel ofthe cell on a fourth candidate resource in the at least one firstresource, wherein the first subframe and the second subframe are twosubframes with different times, the third candidate resource and thefourth candidate resource have different frequency resource positions,and the first common control channel and the second common controlchannel carry the same original bit information.

The base station 800 also can implement methods for transmitting acommon control channel by the base station as shown in FIG. 2 to FIG. 6,and possesses functions of the base station in the above embodiments,which will not be described in detail here.

FIG. 9 is a schematic block diagram of a user equipment 900 according toan embodiment of the present invention. The user equipment 900 caninclude a reception circuit 901, a processor 902 and a storage unit 903.

The processor 902 can determine the candidate resource set within thevirtual downlink resources of the current cell, the virtual downlinkresources are used to detect the common control channel of the currentcell, and the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource of the common control channel of the current cell.

The processor 902 also can perform a detection on at least one candidateresource in the candidate resource set through the reception circuit901, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell.

The memory 903 can store instructions enabling the processor 902 todetermine the candidate resource set within the virtual downlinkresources of the current cell, and perform the detection on at least onecandidate resource in the candidate resource set through the receptioncircuit 901, so as to acquire the common control channel of the currentcell.

In embodiments of the present invention, the user equipment 900 acquiresthe candidate resource set within the virtual downlink resources of thecell, and performs the detection on within the candidate resource set soas to acquire the common control channel of the cell, so that inter-cellinterference of the common control channel can be coordinated, and adetection performance of the common control channel can be improved.

In addition, the user equipment 900 also can include a transmissioncircuit 901, and etc. The processor 902 controls operations of the userequipment 900, and also can be called a central processing unit (CPU).The memory 903 can include a read-only memory and a random access memoryand provide instruction and data to the processor 902. A part of thememory 903 also can include a non-volatile random access memory (NVRAM).In particular application, the transmission circuit 901 and thereception circuit 904 can be coupled to an antenna 905. Variouscomponents of the user equipment 900 are coupled with each other via abus system 906, and in addition to a data bus, the bus system 906 alsocan include a power bus, a control bus, and status signal bus, and etc.For purposes of clarity, however, various buses in the figure all aremarked with the bus system 906.

The methods disclosed in the above embodiments of the present inventioncan be applied to the processor 902, or implemented by the processor902. The processor 902 can be an integrated circuit chip with capabilityof processing signals. During the implementation, various steps of theabove methods can be accomplished by integrated logic circuits ofhardware in the processor 902 or instructions in a software manner. Theprocessor 902 can be a general purpose processor, a digital signalprocessor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit (ASIC), afield programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmable logicdevices, a discrete gate or transistor logic device, and a discretehardware component, which can implement or perform various methods,steps and logic block diagrams disclosed in embodiments of the presentinvention. The general purpose processor can be a microprocessor or theprocessor can be any conventional processor. The steps of the methoddisclosed in conjunction with embodiments of the present invention canbe directly embodied in that, a hardware decoding processor executes tocompletion, or hardware in the decoding processor and software modulesjointly execute to completion. The software modules may be located in arandom memory, a flash memory, a read only memory, a programmable readonly memory or an electrically erasable and programmable memory, aregister, or any other mature storage medium known in the art. Thestorage medium is located in the memory 903, and the processor 902 readsinformation in the memory 903 and accomplishes the foregoing methodsteps in conjunction with its hardware.

Optionally, the processor 902 also can acquire frequency domain positioninformation of the current cell, and determine the virtual downlinkresources according to the frequency domain position information. Thefrequency domain position information includes a central frequency pointposition of the current cell and/or a frequency domain central resourceposition of the current cell.

Optionally, the processor 902 also can acquire the PCI of the currentcell through the reception circuit 901.

Optionally, the processor 902 specifically can perform the detection onat least one candidate resource in the candidate resource set accordingto the PCI through the reception circuit 901, so as to acquire thecommon control channel of the current cell.

Optionally, the processor 902 specifically can determine at least onefirst candidate resource from the candidate resource set according tothe PCI, and perform the detection on at least one first candidateresource according to the PCI through the reception circuit 901, so asto acquire the common control channel of the current cell, wherein thenumber of the at least one first candidate resource is less than orequal to the number of the candidate resources in the candidate resourceset.

Optionally, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to an actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell.

Further, a resource unit of the candidate resource in the candidateresource subset has a maximum frequency domain width less than or equalto half of the actual downlink resource bandwidth corresponding to thecandidate resource subset, and the resource unit is a physical blockPRB, a PRB pair, a control channel element or a resource element group,which consist of the candidate resource in the candidate resourcesubset.

Further, one of the candidate resources in the candidate resource subsetis a frequency domain shift copy of the other candidate resource in thecandidate resource subset.

Further, the processor 902 also can determine at least one firstcandidate resource respectively in each candidate resource subset in thecandidate resource set according to the PCI, and perform the detectionon at least one first candidate resource through the reception circuit901, so as to acquire the common control channel of the current cell.

Optionally, the processor 902 specifically can determine, according toposition information of common control channel detected resources, theactual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, and the commoncontrol channel detected resources are candidate resources detecting thecommon control channel of the current cell; or the processor 902 alsocan determine, according to downlink resource bandwidth indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the current cell,the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell.

Further, the processor 902 specifically can determine, according to thecommon control channel detected resources of the cell to be determined,a first downlink resource bandwidth. If positional relationship betweenthe common control channel detected resources of the cell to bedetermined and the current cell conforms to the positional relationshipindicated by resource position indication information carried by thecommon control channel of the cell to be determined, then the processor902 is further specifically configured to determine that the firstdownlink resource bandwidth is an actual downlink resource bandwidth ofthe current cell, wherein the resource position indication informationcarried by the common control channel of the cell to be determinedindicates the positional relationship between the common control channeldetected resources of the cell to be determined and the cell to bedetermined.

Or, further, the processor 902 is further specifically configured todetermine, according to downlink resource bandwidth indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the cell to bedetermined, a second downlink resource bandwidth. If the common controlchannel detected resources of the cell to be determined are within afrequency resource range of undetermined downlink resources of thecurrent cell, then the processor 902 is further specifically configuredto determine that the second downlink resource bandwidth is an actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, wherein theundetermined downlink resources of the current cell are downlinkresources of a cell when the second downlink resource bandwidth is abandwidth of the current cell.

Optionally, the processor 902 is further specifically configured todetermine, according to position information of common control channeldetected resources, actual resources of common search space of thecurrent cell, where the common control channel detected resources arecandidate resources detecting the common control channel of the currentcell, and the actual resources are resources actually used by the commonsearch space of the current cell.

The processor 902 further can acquire, according to the positioninformation of the common control channel detected resources, candidateresources where the common control channel detected resources arelocated, and determine, according to corresponding relationship betweencandidate resources of common search space and candidate resources ofthe common control channel, that the candidate resources of the commonsearch space corresponding to the candidate resources where the commoncontrol channel detected resources are located are the actual resourcesof the common search space, wherein the candidate resources of thecommon search space are candidate resources in the candidate resourceset or candidate resources in a first common search space candidateresource set corresponding to the candidate resource set.

Optionally, the processor 902 further can determine, according to thecommon search space indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, actual resources of common search space ofthe current cell, wherein the actual resources are resources actuallyused by the common search space of the current cell.

Further, the processor 902 further specifically can determine that allor a part of the candidate resources in the candidate resourcesindicated by the common search space indication information are actualresources of the common search space of the current cell, wherein thecandidate resources indicated by the common search space indicationinformation are candidate resources in the candidate resource set orcandidate resources in a first common search space candidate resourceset corresponding to the candidate resource set.

Or, further, the processor 902 further specifically can determine,according to the position information of the common control channeldetected resources and the common search space indication informationcarried by the common control channel of the current cell, the actualresources of the common search space of the current cell, wherein thecommon control channel detected resources are candidate resourcesdetecting the common control channel of the current cell.

Further, the processor 902 further specifically can determine, accordingto the position information of the common control channel detectedresources, a second common search space candidate resource set of thecurrent cell, and determine, according to the common search spaceindication information carried by the common control channel of thecurrent cell and the second common search space candidate resource set,actual resources of common search space of the current cell, wherein thesecond common search space candidate resource set is a subset of thecandidate resource set or a subset of the first common search spacecandidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resource set.

Optionally, the processor 902 further can determine, according to thePCI, that all or a part of the candidate resources in the candidateresource set are candidate resources of the common search space of thecurrent cell.

Further, if the candidate resources of the common search space of thecurrent cell are a part of candidate resources in the candidate resourceset, then the processor 902 further can perform the detection on thecandidate resources other than candidate resources of the common searchspace of the current cell in the candidate resource set, so as toacquire the common control channel of the current cell.

Optionally, the processor 902 specifically can determine, according tothe PCI of the current cell and/or the position information of thecommon control channel detected resources, a first part of resources ofthe common search space of the current cell, and determine, according tocommon search space indication information carried by the common controlchannel of the current cell, a second part of resources of the commonsearch space of the current cell; wherein the actual resources of commonsearch space of the current cell include the first part of resources andthe second part of resources.

Optionally, the width of the virtual downlink resources is greater thanor equal to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell;and/or the width of the virtual downlink resources is greater than orequal to a predefined downlink resource bandwidth.

Optionally, the common control channel also can carry at least one ofthe following information: actual downlink resource bandwidthinformation of the current cell, system radio frame number, antenna portnumber, antenna port numbers, physical hybrid automatic repeat requestindicator channel PHICH configuration information, enhanced physicalhybrid automatic repeat request indicator channel ePHICH configurationinformation, scheduling information of a first system information blockSIB1 in a system information block SIB and configuration information ofSIB other than the SIB1.

Optionally, the processor 902 specifically detects, in a first subframe,a first common control channel of the current cell on a third candidateresource in the at least one candidate resource through the receptioncircuit 901, and detecting, in a second subframe, a second commoncontrol channel of the current cell on a fourth candidate resource inthe at least one candidate resource, wherein the first subframe and thesecond subframe are two subframes with different times, the thirdcandidate resource and the fourth candidate resource have differentfrequency resource positions, and the first common control channel andthe second common control channel carry the same original bitinformation.

The user equipment 900 also can implement methods for detecting a commoncontrol channel of a current cell by the UE as shown in FIG. 1 to FIG.5, and possesses functions of the UE in the above embodiments, whichwill not be described in detail here.

FIG. 10 is a schematic block diagram of a base station 1000 according toan embodiment of the present invention. The base station 1000 caninclude a processor 1002, a memory 1003 and a transmission circuit 1001.

The processor 1002 can select at least one first resource from acandidate resource set of a cell.

The memory 1003 can store an instruction enabling the processor 1002 toselect at least one first resource from the candidate resource set ofthe cell.

The transmission circuit 1001 can transmit a common control channel ofthe cell on the at least one first resource.

In embodiments of the present invention, the base station 1000determines the candidate resource set of the cell, and transmits thecommon control channel within the candidate resource set, so thatinter-cell interference of the common control channel can becoordinated, and a detection performance of the common control channelcan be improved.

In addition, the base station 1000 further can include a receptioncircuit 1004 and so on. The processor 1002 controls operations of theuser equipment 1000, and also can be called a central processing unit(CPU). The memory 1003 can include a read-only memory and a randomaccess memory, and provide instructions and data to the processor 1002.A part of the memory 1003 also can include a non-volatile random accessmemory (NVRAM). In specific applications, the transmission circuit 1001and the reception circuit 1004 can be coupled to an antenna 1005.Various components of the base station 1000 are coupled with each othervia a bus system 1006, and in addition to a data bus, the bus system 66also can include a power bus, a control bus, and status signal bus, andetc. For purposes of clarity, however, various buses in the figure allare marked with the bus system 1006.

The methods disclosed in the above embodiments of the present inventioncan be applied to the processor 1002, or implemented by the processor1002. The processor 1002 can be an integrated circuit chip withcapability of processing signals. During the implementation, varioussteps of the above methods can be accomplished by integrated logiccircuits of hardware in the processor 1002 or instructions in a softwaremanner. The processor 1002 can be a general purpose processor, a digitalsignal processor (DSP), an application specific integrated circuit(ASIC), a field programmable gate array (FPGA) or other programmablelogic devices, a discrete gate or transistor logic device, and adiscrete hardware component, which can implement or perform variousmethods, steps and logic block diagrams disclosed in embodiments of thepresent invention. The general purpose processor can be a microprocessoror the processor can be any conventional processor. The steps of themethod disclosed in conjunction with embodiments of the presentinvention can be directly embodied in that, a hardware decodingprocessor executes to completion, or hardware in the decoding processorand software modules jointly execute to completion. The software modulesmay be located in a random memory, a flash memory, a read only memory, aprogrammable read only memory or an electrically erasable andprogrammable memory, a register, or any other mature storage mediumknown in the art. The storage medium is located in the memory 1003, andthe processor 1002 reads information in the memory 1003 and accomplishthe foregoing method steps in conjunction with its hardware.

Optionally, the processor 1002 can determine the candidate resource setin the actual downlink resources of the cell.

Further, the processor 1002 is further configured to determine at leastone first candidate resource from the candidate resource set accordingto a physical cell identifier PCI of the cell, and select at least onefirst resource from the at least one first candidate resource. Thenumber of the at least one first candidate resource is less than orequal to the number of the candidate resources in the candidate resourceset.

Or, further, the candidate resource set includes at least one candidateresource subset, and each candidate resource subset in the candidateresource set corresponds to an actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecell.

Further, a resource unit of the candidate resource in the candidateresource set has a maximum frequency domain width less than or equal tohalf of the actual downlink resource bandwidth corresponding to thecandidate resources in the candidate resource set, and the resource unitis a physical block PRB, a PRB pair, a control channel element or aresource unit group, which consist of the candidate resource.

Further, one of the candidate resources in the candidate resource subsetis a frequency domain shift copy of the other candidate resource in thecandidate resource subset.

Further, the processor 1002 is further configured to determine,according to the actual downlink resource bandwidth of the cell, a firstcandidate resource subset corresponding to the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the cell in the candidate resource set; and select at leastone first resource from the first candidate resource subset.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell further carriesdownlink resource bandwidth indication information for indicating actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the cell.

Optionally, the common control channel of the cell further carriesresource position indication information for indicating a positionalrelationship between the candidate resource which transmits the commoncontrol channel of the cell and the cell.

Optionally, the position information of the at least one first resourceis further used to indicate actual resources of common search space ofthe cell for a UE.

Further, the common control channel of the cell further carries firstcommon search space indication information for indicating actualresources of the common search space of the cell.

Further, the actual resources indicated by the first common search spaceindication information are all or a part of the candidate resources inthe candidate resource set; or all or a part of the candidate resourcesin the first common search space candidate resource set corresponding tothe candidate resource set.

Or optionally, the position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate a second common search spacecandidate resource set of the common search space of the cell for a UE,and the second common search space candidate resource set is a subset ofthe candidate resource set or a subset of the first common search spacecandidate resource set corresponding to the candidate resource set; thecommon control channel of the cell further carries third common searchspace indication information for indicating a position of the actualresources of the common search space of the cell in the second commonsearch space candidate resource set.

Or, optionally, the position information of the at least one firstresource is further used to indicate a first part of resources of commonsearch space of the cell for a UE; the common control channel of thecurrent cell further carries fourth common search space indicationinformation for indicating a second part of resources of the commonsearch space of the current cell; and the actual resources of commonsearch space of the current cell include the first part of resources andthe second part of resources.

Optionally, if the candidate resources of the common search space of thecell are a part of candidate resources in the candidate resource set,then the processor 1002 is specifically configured to select at leastone first resource from the candidate resources other than resources ofthe common search space of the cell in the candidate resource set.

Optionally, the common control channel can carry at least one of thefollowing information: actual downlink resource bandwidth information ofthe cell, system radio frame number, antenna port number, antenna portnumbers, physical hybrid automatic repeat request indicator channelPHICH configuration information, enhanced physical hybrid automaticrepeat request indicator channel ePHICH configuration information,scheduling information of a first system information block SIB1 in asystem information block SIB and configuration information of SIB otherthan the SIB1.

Optionally, the processor 1002 is specifically configured to transmit,in a first subframe, a first common control channel of the cell on athird candidate resource of the at least one first resource, andtransmit, in a second subframe, a second common control channel of thecell on a fourth candidate resource of the at least one first resource,wherein the first subframe and the second subframe are two subframeswith different times, the third candidate resource and the fourthcandidate resource have different frequency resource positions, and thefirst common control channel and the second common control channel carrythe same original bit information.

The base station 1000 also can implement methods for transmitting acommon control channel by the base station as shown in FIG. 2 to FIG. 6,and possesses functions of the base station in the above embodiments,which will not be described in detail here.

Understandably, in various embodiments of the present invention, thesize of the serial number for each process does not mean the successiveexecution sequence, and the execution sequence for each process shouldbe determined depending on its function and internal logic, but notintended to limit the process of implementing embodiments of the presentinvention.

Persons skilled in the art are aware that the various exemplary unitsand algorithm steps described in connection with the embodimentsdisclosed herein can be implemented as electronic hardware, or acombination of computer software and electronic hardware. Whether thesefunctions are executed through hardware or software depends on specialapplications of the technical solutions and design restrictions.Professional technicians may implement the described functions invarying ways for each special application, but such implementationdecisions should not be interpreted as causing a departure from thescope of the present invention.

Persons skilled in the art can understand that, for convenience andbrevity of description, the detailed working procedures of the systems,apparatuses, and units described above can be referred to thecorresponding procedures in the method embodiments, and are not repeatedherein.

Understandably, in the embodiments provided by the present application,the disclosed systems, apparatuses and methods may be implemented inother modes. For example, the device embodiments above are onlyillustrative, and the units of the device are divided from theperspective of logical functions only and may be divided in a differentway in practical application. For example, multiple units or componentsmay be combined or integrated into another system, or some features maybe ignored or not executed. Besides, the coupling, direct coupling orcommunication connection illustrated or discussed herein may beimplemented through some interfaces, and indirect coupling orcommunication connection between devices or units may be electronic,mechanical, or in other forms.

The units described as stand-alone components above may be separatedphysically or not; and the components illustrated as units may bephysical units or not, namely, they may be located in one place, ordistributed on multiple network elements. Some or all of the unitsdescribed above may be selected as required to fulfill the objectives ofthe embodiment solutions of the present invention.

Besides, all functional units in the embodiments of the presentinvention may be physically stand-alone, or integrated into a processingunit, or two or more of the units are integrated into one unit.

When being implemented as a software function unit and sold or used as astand-alone product, the functions may be stored in a computer-readablestorage medium. Based on this understanding, the essence of thetechnical solution of the present invention, or its contribution to theprior art, or part of the technical solutions, may be embodied in asoftware product. The computer software product may be stored in astorage medium and incorporates several instructions for instructing onecomputer device (for example, personal computer, server, or networkdevice) to execute all or part of the steps of the method specified inthe respective embodiment of the present invention. Examples of thestorage medium include various media capable of storing program codes,such as a USB disk, a mobile hard disk, a read-only memory (ROM), arandom access memory (RAM), a magnetic disk, or an optical disk.

The above descriptions are merely concrete embodiments of the presentinvention, but not intended to limit the protection scope of the presentinvention. Any variations or replacement that can be easily derived bypersons skilled in the art without departing from the technical scopedisclosed by the present invention shall fall within the protectionscope of the present invention. Therefore, the protection scope of thepresent invention is subject to the appended claims.

What is claimed is:
 1. A method for detecting a common control channel,comprising: determining a candidate resource set within virtual downlinkresources of a current cell, wherein the candidate resource setcomprises at least one candidate resource carrying a common controlchannel of the current cell; and performing a detection on at least onecandidate resource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire thecommon control channel of the current cell.
 2. The method according toclaim 1, wherein: before the determining the candidate resource setwithin the virtual downlink resources of the current cell, the methodfurther comprises: acquiring frequency domain position information ofthe current cell, wherein the frequency domain position informationcomprises a central frequency point position of the current cell and/ora frequency domain central resource position of the current cell; anddetermining the virtual downlink resources according to the frequencydomain position information.
 3. The method according to claim 1, furthercomprising: determining an actual downlink resource bandwidth of thecurrent cell according to position information of a common controlchannel detected resource, wherein the common control channel detectedresource is a candidate resource detecting the common control channel ofthe current cell; or determining the actual downlink resource bandwidthof the current cell according to downlink resource bandwidth indicationinformation carried by the common control channel of the current cell.4. The method according to claim 3, wherein the determining the actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, comprises: determining,according to a common control channel detected resource of a cell to bedetermined, a first downlink resource bandwidth; and if a positionalrelationship between the common control channel detected resource of thecell to be determined and the current cell conforms to a positionalrelationship indicated by resource position indication informationcarried by a common control channel of the cell to be determined,determining that the first downlink resource bandwidth is the actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, wherein the resourceposition indication information carried by the common control channel ofthe cell to be determined indicates a positional relationship betweenthe common control channel detected resource of the cell to bedetermined and the cell to be determined.
 5. A user equipment,comprising: a determination unit, configured to determine a candidateresource set within virtual downlink resources of a current cell,wherein the candidate resource set comprises at least one candidateresource carrying a common control channel of the current cell; and adetection unit, configured to perform a detection on at least onecandidate resource in the candidate resource set, so as to acquire thecommon control channel of the current cell.
 6. The user equipmentaccording to claim 5, further comprising: a first acquisition unit,configured to acquire frequency domain position information of thecurrent cell, wherein the frequency domain position informationcomprises a central frequency point position of the current cell and/ora frequency domain central resource position of the current cell;wherein the determination unit is further configured to determine thevirtual downlink resources according to the frequency domain positioninformation.
 7. The user equipment according to claim 5, wherein: thedetermination unit is further configured to determine, according toposition information of a common control channel detected resource, anactual downlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, wherein thecommon control channel detected resource is a candidate resourcedetecting the common control channel of the current cell; or thedetermination unit is further configured to determine, according todownlink resource bandwidth indication information carried by the commoncontrol channel of the current cell, the actual downlink resourcebandwidth of the current cell.
 8. The user equipment according to claim7, wherein: the determination unit is specifically configured todetermine, according to an common control channel detected resource of acell to be determined, a first downlink resource bandwidth; and if apositional relationship between the common control channel detectedresource of the cell to be determined and the current cell conforms to apositional relationship indicated by resource position indicationinformation carried by a common control channel of the cell to bedetermined, the determination unit is further specifically configured todetermine that the first downlink resource bandwidth is the actualdownlink resource bandwidth of the current cell, wherein the resourceposition indication information carried by the common control channel ofthe cell to be determined indicates a positional relationship betweenthe common control channel detected resource of the cell to bedetermined and the cell to be determined.